Gundam: War of the Souls
by Lord Kass
Summary: a story of what happened before the Gwing boys were born.
1. Episode One

_"The last time I saw my friends was the day before the war began. We had made a promise_

_that no matter what we would always be there for each other-even if we got seperated...and we were."_

A young woman with black hair sighed and hid a small black book in a drawer of the desk she

sat at in her small room. It would be two years this up coming Wednesday that the war had been

raging between the Earth Militaria and the Nexis Union-those who lived in the space colonies. From

her room the woman could just make out the left side of the Earth, it seemed so far away and

lonely in the vassness of space. She was deep in thought when a knock at her door brought her

back to reality and she turned around in the small silver chair to face the door of her room.

'Enter.'

she called in a tired, yet commanding voice. A man with shoulder length blonde hair walked in, he

wore the commanding officers colours of red and black, unlike the woman who wore the same

colours, this man had four stars on his shoulder to signify his higher rank.

'Lady Zetsume...'

'How many times have I told you to call me by my first name....'

there was a pause, Taka Zetsume knew it was not her place to correct the commander, but she

hated hearing commander Zash call her by her last name, it didn't sound right to her. Out of all

the officers on the 'Mark Xiii-ii', Zash was the only one who respected her and knew of her past

that would ruine her if any one else were to find out. Zash watched Taka for a few moments with

his icey blue eyes, a slight smirk played on the corner of his lips.

'I'll remember for the next time-but the Captain wants a word with you as of five minutes ago.'

'oh, very well...'

'heh. You make it sound like a chore.'

Taka smiled slightly at Zash' remark, he always made comments on how effortlessly she appeared

to do everything, though she was always one of the hardest working officers on the ship.

'You try being the only female on the Mark Xiii-ii that can operate a Dark Class Unit.'

'How about the only person on this ship...'

Taka frowned at Zash, he knew full well that she wasn't the only person on the ship to be able to

pilot a Dark Class Unit. there were three others, Zash being one of them, Caldin and Siro were the

other two.

'Anyways, can't keep the captain waiting.'

Taka said changing the topic before she found herself in a debate over something trivial with a

great friend and commander.

'Ladies first.'

Zash backed away to let Taka go first, she thanked him. They walked in silence along the halls, the

large battle ship made many noises and as annoying as most of them were, it was comferting as

it ment the ship was in top shape. They soon arrived on the bridge, there were several officers

walking around, but the captain was identified by his long red uniform and large shoulder pads.

Captain Jindros turned and greeted the pair with a large smile, his small brown eyes twinkling with

pleasure of seeing them.

'Ah, Zetsume-glad to see you finally made it. No time for explinations, but the Nexis Union and I

have a task for you. do you except?'

'of course.'

Taka nodded her head, having a feeling that she did't have much of a choice even if she had declined.

she was curious though, the Nexis Union was the orginization behind the war and for them to ask for

her personally made her nervous.

'For us to win this war, we need you to take your DCU down to Earth and capture the last remaining

Earth force Gundams. We have records of six of them in use at the moment.'

Taka listened to her captain with great interest, she had battled ordinary mobile suits, but never had

she ever fought against another Gundam.

'Bring us those suits, Taka...and if you encounter any problems...destroy those suits at all costs. they

may not be ready for space battle yet, but we can't take any chances. understand?'

'Yes sir!'

'we've locked the location to our secret base on Earth into your DCU, that way you can rest and make

any repairs if nessary or anything else while your on Earth. Now you must leave immediatly, or risk

the Earth Militaria catching on to our plans.'

'I understand.'

Taka bowed deeply to her captain and promptly left-she wouldn't waste any time and was headed to

the bay where her Gundam was docked and waiting her. She was scared and excited at the same time,

Gundams were the single most powerful weapon to any human or orginazation, but the Earth's

Gundams were not prepared to face the Dark Class Units. Indeed they were Gundams, but had the

power of three gundams built into them-only Five had ever been made and they had been made only

for the Nexis Union. Four of them were currently being used in the war, and the fifth had been

destroyed as it was defective and was obviously too powerful for anyone human or otherwise to

pilot.

Dark Class Unit One: Dark Fear, this was Zash's Gundam-built for close range battles and speed. it

was the fastest mobile suit known to exist.

Dark Class Unit Two: The Black Death, Taka's Gundam-built for stealth and spying, this gundam

had been built with parts from the Fifth DCU, making this gundam a formidable foe.

Dark Class Unit Three: The Chaos Machine, Siro's 'pet' as he called it. designed to confuse the enemy

by sending out decoy missles while the main power hit the enemy with its built in lazer cannon.

Dark Class Unit Four: Power House, Caldin's gundam, not built for speed, but for power-it has

various guns, missles, lazers and cannons hidden beneith its armour. its usually the first into battles.

Taka pulled herself out of her thoughts when she heard someone following her, she turned

to see Siro and Caldin grinning at her like a child who had just been caught red handed in a cookie

jar.

'What are you two doing?'

she demanded, having a feeling that Zash had sent them-Taka placed her hands on her hips like a

old fashioned mother.

'we've been told to escort you to Earth.'

Caldin replied, his mop of brown hair falling into his amber eyes as he spoke.

'I think I can handle myself-it's not that far and I've done it before in lesser vessels none the less.'

growled Taka, growing annoyed at how everyone was treating her like a delicate flower now that

she had an important mission on her shoulders.

'Zash said we have to, he says this time is different.'

pipped Siro-who had his blue hair slicked back with too much gel. Taka sighed, if it was 'Zash''

wishes then she knew that she would lose this arguement.

'Alright, but remember this' my mission....'

'Correction, it's our mission now...'

The three pilots turned to see a group of men holding guns at them, they must be the suspected

traitors that Zash had told her about-she growled in frusteration and balled her fists.

'We're going to take the Dark Class Units and win this war for Earth!'

boomed a tall bald man, he grinned darkly at the pilots, his gaze sizing up each of them and stopping

on Taka.

'We only need the woman, she knows where the secret base is-do what you like with the other two-

they are useless to us as of now.'

Taka could only watch helplessly as her friends were shoved into a small room-fear for their lives

filled Taka as the bald man shoved her towards the docking bay.

'Don't worry-I'll save you guys...'

she thought, as they walked through the door to the bay. The traitors were shouting and demanding

all the mechanics to lay face down or be shot.

'What's the meaning of this!?'

Came Marion's voice, He was head Mechanic and one of Taka's trusted friends as he personally

helped with the work on The Black Death.

'We said get down-Dirtbag!'

there was a loud blast and a yell as Taka watched Marion's body fall to the groud-blood dripping

from the bullet hole in his chest.

'You Bastards!'

Taka yelled, twisting and trying to excape the bald man that held her arm tightly. Anger and hatred

filled her soul as she was only hindering herself more then helping. the man laughed, that's when

Taka elbowed him in the gut-taking the opertunity to grab his gun and turn it to him, aiming for

his head.

'DIE!'

She pulled the trigger and screamed as a wave of pain ran through her hands and up her arms to the

rest of her body. She fell to her knees and gasped for air, tears blurring her vision, she had lost the

gun to the left of her. the man laughed and grabbed Taka by the hair-she was too weak to defend

herself, trying to understand what happened to her, why had she been hurt when she pulled the trigger?

'That gun's got a lock on it-anyone other then myself try's to shoot it, will get a lovely dose of

electricity through them. not enough to kill them, but enough to immobilize them long enough...handy

idea, don't you think?'

'You saddistic B....'

"TAKA!!!!!'

Zash had arrived on the scene as soon as he found out that there was a disturbance in the bay area.

Taka couldn't see anything,but she had to try and warn Zash, if the other pilots were dead and she

was good as dead, he would be the last one to manage a DCU and win the war, he couldn't die here.

'Zash! Run for it! let them....'

She was cut off by gun fire, and yells of both men and woman. Taka felt the bald man let go of her,

but she had been thrown off of the cat walk and landed with a loud 'thud' on a pile of used boxes.

She had her eyes shut, it sounded like mass chaos as she listened to the firing and screams of pain-

she laid there for a moment willing herself to not be there anymore.

'Taka? Taka if you can hear me....crackle get to your gundam...crackle and go!'

it was Zash, he had found a safe spot and was commanding Taka to move, she nodded at the com.

link though she knew that Zash couldn't hear a nod. She opened her eyes, and instantl wished that she

hadn't, it was worse then it sounded. blood, and bodies all over the place-luckily she was only a few

yards from her suit-if she was lucky she would be ableto make it. She hesitated for a moment, she

didn't want to just abandon her friends and her ship at this time of need-however she had orders to

fulfill and it wouldn't do any good if she was killed while fighting in a meaningless scrap. Taka

took a deep breath and lept from the safety of the boxes and ran as fast as she could towards her

gundam-cursing her short skirt the entire way-it was slowing her down. She also had to evoid the

burrage of bullets and explosions, which was harder then she had thought originally. She was almost

there when a sharp pain ran through her body-she had been hit in the right shoulder by a stray

bullet. she stumbled, but kept going until she had finally made it to her gundam, ignoring the pain

and dizziness from lack of blood.

'Go Taka! Get out of here, I'll be right b-Agh!'

Taka turned just in time to see the limp body of Zash fall off the cat walk and land on the cold floor.

'"ZASH!"

She screamed, but was now locked in the cockpit of her Gundam, this wasn't right-if anyone it

should be Zash to live, not her. Taka thought as she numbly punched in the order codes to start her

machine. Within moments it was powered up and with a giant 'clang' she had made it obvious to all

the others that this Gundam was active and ready to strike. All firing had stopped as people watched

the massive suit take a few large steps towards them-soon everyone was scattering, none of their

guns could even scratch the Gundam. Taka had a dark look on her face as she held on finger over

the firing button, but she knew better then to fire any weaponry inside the ship. She turned and

flipped a switch over head, watching the states on a small screen to her left.

'Unit Two, Launching!'

She yelled into the com. link to let the ship's control room know that she was alright and on her way.

Alarms sounded and a robotic voice was warning all those on the floor to move to safety as the

Gundam stood facing a opening door. a huge force hit Taka's unit from the back and sent her

hurling into the silence of space. Taka turned her gundam to take one last look at the ship she had

grown to know as home.

'You all had better meet me there...'

she whispered to herself, referring to her friends and fellow pilots.

'Wish me luck!'

with that The Black Death was nothing more then a flickering light in the distance heading towards

the sapphire jewel that was Earth.


	2. Episode Two

**Previously:**

_Taka Zetsume was given orders to take her Dark Class Unit to Earth and capture the_

_remaining six Gundams. However, she was slowed as a group of Radicals took her and the_

_other Pilots prisoner. Taka managed to excape with the location of a secret base locked away_

_in her gundam. She may have excaped but it didn't look so good for her fellow pilots as when_

_she saw them last they were on the losing side of a fight with the Radicals..._

**_Episode two: _Blind Run**

"Raaaaagh!!!"

A young woman with curly burnt blonde hair screamed in frusteration while kicking the machine she

was standing on.

'Avi, it's just a game...'

a shorter woman chuckled, pulling her autumn red hair out of her eyes and taking deep breaths.

"I...Don't...Care...Miho!"

Avi replied as she booted the machine with each word she said.

'Don't break the machine! I haven't had a go yet!'

called a young man with sleek black hair, he sat at a table with a canned drink in his left hand.

'heh. don't worry about it,Kyo.'

replied a second young man with blonde hair and icey blue ends, he was leaning against a wall and

casually looking over at the clock to see what time it was.

'RYDER! KYO!Come play!'

Miho yelled at her friends while waving both hands frantically in the air, trying to draw them over

to the loud machine, Ryder rolled his eyes and let out a small sigh as Kyo jumped to his feet and

downed the last of his drink.

'Just Wait!'

'better hurry, or Miho'll play double...'

smirked Ryder watching Kyo walk over to the other two and hearing Miho squeel about playing

double and Avi's groan of pain from hurting her feet.

'No, she'll make me play double.'

Kyo called as he glared at Miho who lept off of the platform and laughed like a hyena. Ryder was

getting a headache from the loud music from the arcade, he hadn't felt that good when he woke up

that morning but with nothing better to do he went out to visit with his friends anyways. He walked

outside and pulled his jacket around him tighter, it was chilly in the small partially abandoned town.

Nothing to do, but live day by day and wait for the news that the war was over, they had been one

of the first places hit in the beginning of the war and very few dared to stay as there were many

rumours about the town. thinking back, Ryder had lost almost everything he had ever wanted,

leaving him with a now empty house and a group of friends who still hadn't accepted the cold truth

that they would have to leave this place soon or die there.

'Damn war...'

Ryder kicked a old brick that had fallen from a building close by, he was feeling hatred towards the

Nexis Union as he went to kick the brick again-something in the sky caught his eye. Looking up he

saw it, something was falling from above the clouds and heading straight towards the hills were it had

once been a threshhold of life, now it was barely livable for fungus. It zoomed right over the building

and Ryder decided to go check it out, looking back to see if any of the others had noticed it, they

hadn't so he dashed off on his own. He knew it would be something dangerous and that it was best

that his friend weren't there anyways, he ran along the empty highway until he reached a peak in the

road. As he ran he thought that maybe what ever this object was had been sent from allied forces to

save those few that were left in this city, or it could be another attack, either way it was better then

playing a silly dancing game. he had heard from a traveller that the war was growing very close to

this city again and some said that it would be the spot that the war had began and would end. Foolish

and hopeful rumours of those who had yet to see the bitter truth, or that's what Ryder had thought,

until now. This could change everything, and he would love to be the one to help with that, he didn't

notice that he was still running along the road until voices jogged him from his thoughts and he came

to a slow stop.

'RYDER--WAIT UP!!!!!'

He turned to see his three friends jogging to try and catch up with him, they had seen him run off and

followed him worried that something might happen to him.

"Ryder I'm going to kick your Ass for trying to ditch us!"

bellowed an already breathless Avi-Ryder just shrugged and continued in a quick pace he knew the

others would be able to catch up to him in a few moments. He didn't want to stop, he was so close

to finding out what the object had been that fell from the sky, and tried to keep his resentment of his

friends showing up at bay, but hearing them shout profanity and threats at him made it incredibly

hard. Miho had just said something stupid and Ryder was about to yell at her to shut up when

suddenly the Earth around them began to shake violently, this was not good at all-Ryder was sure

he heard the soft sound of something mechanically moving nearby.

'It's an EarthQuake!'

Miho yelled, trying to find a door frame or something like they had all been told to do from childhood,

but Kyo grabbed her arm and shook his head, he then saw something in the distance and yelled to

the others.

'Look over there!'

Ryder turned to see what Kyo was pointing at, he was blinded for a moment from the sun reflecting

off of the fast moving object as it raced towards them-then it moved so that the sun was no longer

shining on it and Ryder nearly fell back in surprise.Kyo had already grabbed Miho and Avi by the

arms and was trying to drag the two girls away as fast as he could, Miho looked over her shoulder

and was clearly confused about what was going on and why Ryder was still a good distance from

them.

'It's a Gundam! Get the Hell out of here, Now!'

Kyo was yelling, his voice soon drowned out as from the air above them shot a large scythe which

extended all the way to where the now stopped Gundam was-with one quick slice the Gundam's

arm was sliced off. The four were frozen in shock and fear, they couldn't see where the scythe

had come from and knew of nothing strong enough to damage a Gundam like that. the scythe

disappeared above Kyo and the girls, there was something there using stealth mode and for some

reason the Gundam hadn't been able to pick it up on it rador-Ryder didn't like the thought of

something that a Gundam couldn't see.

'What the hell was that?'

Kyo mouthed to Ryder who shrugged in reply, all he knew was they were in the middle of a battle

between two giants and neither one would care about four careless kids that were in the way. he

looked over and saw that the gundam was still coming and was firing off rounds of bullets. all

missing its target, the pilot was shooting blind and Ryder knew that if he and his friend stayed there

they would surely get hit by the Gundam's missed shots.

''MOVE!!!!!!''

Ryder yelled as he took a mad dash towards his friends, he could feel the heat of the bullets all

around him-he lept over a broken wall as it exploded from the impact of beingh it by something.

He made it and shoved Kyo behind another wall just as a bullet landed where Kyo had been standing.

They didn't move for a moment, keeping their heads covered and then looking at each other they

lept to their feet and dashed towards the girls who were hiding by a building. they were out of the

innitial battle area, but that could all change on a seconds notice, they had to get farther away from

this fight. Ryder paused at the corner of the building to see the damaged Gundam ram into something-

a black Gundam appeared instantly and swung the scythe around for the killing blow to the other

Gundam. Ryder was in awe as he had never seen anything like that before, the poor pilot of the

other Gundam didn't have a chance as his gundam exploded with a rain of fire and sparks-causing

small fires to break out all over the place. the black Gundam disappeared again, like some sort of

phantom of death. There was a final explosion that rocked the surrounding area, sending Ryder

and his friends off balance and onto the ground, he had landed on some shattered glass and cut

open his left arm, pain surged through him as he tried not to yell out in pain.

'Crap, whatever that thing was took down that Gundam and took no damage at all...'

Ryder thought as he pulled himself back to his feet and stumbled towards the other three who looked

dazed and confused.

'Everyone okay?'

Kyo asked, helping Avi to her feet with little result as Avi had twisted her leg when she had fallen.

Miho and Ryder just mummbled their responses.

'time to go home...'

Miho sighed pulling dirt from her hair.

''FREEZE!''

'what now!?'

Avi growled as the four turned to see a group of soldiers approach, all holding large guns that would

easily tear a good hole in any of them if they made any quick moves. It wasn't until they were being

handcuffed and blind folded that they realized that they were in more trouble then they had thought

they would have been, for these soldiers were of the Nexis Union.

'Stupid Kids.'

yelled a man as he walked around them, his griseld features making him looking ten years older then

he was, he also had greying hair and large eyebrows, but other then that he was fit and a strong

soldier. He got a look of disgust as he sized up each of them, shaking his head as he tried to figure

out what four kids were doing running around in this area anyways.

'Take them to the base, we'll deal with them there.the Lady will want full reports from us all.'

the man said in his deep and rough voice, watching as the four were lead to the truck that the men had

arrived in. Ryder remained silent as the others blabbed to each other and made rude comments to

the soldiers and in general. Once in the truck it was roughly a fourty five minute drive from the town

to the base, the truck came to a stop finally and Ryder was trying to listen to what the men were

saying in case they revealed anything that may come in handy later on...if there was going to be a

later on...

'Access code 99257109-20....'

'Did they take Ryder? where's Ryder? you there...Ryyyyyyyddddder!?'

Avi called out, Ryder growled frusterated that she had drowned the end of the access code to get in

and out of the base.

'maybe he fell asleep?'

miho replied rather cheerily even though they were in a very serious situation. Ryder wasn't impressed

at how thick his friends were being at the moment, at least Kyo seemed to understand why Ryder

was silent.

'Ryder...wha'

'Get out!'

the four were grabbed by the soldiers and dragged out of the back of the truck-Miho had tripped and

fell flat on her face as she screamed in pain.

'Get up!'

one of the men yelled at her, trying to pull her to her feet, but it was in vain as she had become dead

weight and this seemed to frusterate the soldiers. Ryder couldn't help but smirk as he imagined Miho

being stubborn, but this wasn't the time or the place for her to play these kind of games as he was

sure she would be killed without hesitation.

'Let me down!'

miho cried as she was picked up by two soldiers and carried off like a wounded animal.

'c'mon, lets get these kids into the cell's before the lady see's us struggling with them.'

one man said as they began to shove the four down several halls and a steep staircase until the air

became almost freezing and it was deathly silent all that was heard was the sounds of their feet hitting

the cement. Each one had been shoved into a seperate cell and uncuffed before the soldiers locked

them away.

'I'll let Delia deal with you four...she'll have fun thinking of a way to....'

a balding soldier sneered as he shut the outer doors, leaving the four in a dim light and

cold perdicament.

'what do you think they'll do to us? they wouldn't kill us would they?'

Miho asked, obviously worried about who or what Delia was and she had a feeling she already knew

what would happen to them. she had already pulled her blind fold off and leaned against her cell

door, Avi and Kyo was doing the same, the only one not there was Ryder. the other three looked

at each other worriedly, but that man had said 'four' so Ryder had to have been there.

'where's Ryder?'

Avi asked, concern rising in her voice as she looked at the long rows of cells on each side of the long

hallway.

'He's here, somewhere, I heard four cell doors slam...'

replied kyo-turning to see Miho looking like she had just found out her pet gold fish had died.

Ryder was in the cell at the very end of the hall, sitting at the back of the dark cell and listening

to his friends jabber on. He didn't see the need to dangle half his body out of the cell and making

himself look like a fool.

'They go's yas too?'

Came a old shakey sounding voice at the corner of Ryder's cell-he turned sharply and stood to his

feet, not wanting to be on the ground incase the strange man attacked him. The older man stepped

into a slight crack of light and looked at the shadowed form of Ryder, this man looked like he had

been in the cell for years. his hair was long and matted and his torn clothing were three sizes too

large.

'Who are you?'

Ryder demanded, feeling nervous with the strange man eyeing him like that.

'my name is unimportant, what is importants is that these people don't get their hands on the last

four Gundams.'

Ryder shifted his weight, this man must have been mistaken, there was only two Gundams in

existance, but he would listen on of what this man had to say.

'you saw it...didn' you? The Dark Class Unit...it destroyed that last Gundam...'

'how did you...wait, did you say Dark Class Unit!? I thought they were only a myth, made to scare

civilians and the Earth forces alike.'

'Ha! If only..it's true...and the only thing strong enough to stop them are the Ronin Gundams.'

Ryder raised an eyebrow, he had never even heard of that class of Gundam before, but kept

quiet as he wanted to hear more of these gundams.

'they have been hidden in secret locations, I've searched for a long time but have never found those

worthy of their secrets and power. that is...until now...my time is short, but if you accept I know

that I have made a wise choice. here, take this...its all up to you now.'

the man shoved a small chip into Ryder's hands, before Ryder could react the cell door was thrown

open and two soldiers shoved Ryder to one side and grabbed the old man with ease.

'Markus Peacecraft, you are to come with us and finish your term.'

'FOOLS! YOU'RE ALL FOOLS!'

the man yelled , forcing the guards to shove him into the wall of the cell and making the man gasp for

breath. while the soldiers were dealing with the old man Ryder silently managed to grabbed a set of

keys from the closest soldier.

'YOU ALL WILL PERISH!'

the man called out as the soldiers dragged him away and slammed the cell door shut, that rattled the

rest of the cell doors.

'Ryder are you alright!?'

Kyo asked, reappearing at his door looking over to see if Ryder had been injured by those men that

had just left his cell. Ryder finally and slowly came to the cell door with a slight grin on his face.

'What is it?'

Miho asked, joining the others at the doors and staring at Ryder, she was the first one to notice

the strange look on his face, and was worried. Kyo and Avi also noticed that Ryder was acting

strange-not like his normal impartial self.

'Those guys didn't hurt you, did they?'

Avi asked, kicking the base of her cell with the tip of her foot.

'No....but we'll be out of here before you can blink.'

replied Ryder, enjoying the confused expressions on his friends faces, they all looked at him then

at each other.

'what do you mean?'

Ryder grinned at Avi's question, he didn't reply but just winked at them, then turned so that his back

leaned against the door and very slowly it began to open, the others looked at him with their mouths

wide open in shock-Ryder rolled his eyes and held up the keys that he had stolen from the soldier.

_**Next Episode....**_

_Ryder and friends make a break to escape the base and to go find the hidden Ronin _

_Gundams. Meanwhile, lady Zetsume finds that she's just not ment to have a break just yet, _

_but in the end she is greeted with several surprises...._

_Episode Three: Break towards Freedom_


	3. Episode Three

**Previously:**

_Ryder Hakashi, Avi Isamu, Miho Okana, and Kyo Yoshiharu were few survivors living in_

_the first strike zone, living their lives day to day as best as they could with what they were left with._

_The next thing they knew it they were in the middle of a battle between two Gundams, in the end _

_it resulted in them being captured by the Nexis Union's Army.but because of an old man that Ryder_

_shared a cell with he and his friends are about to begin a brand new adventure....._

**_Episode Three: _Break towards Freedom**

Taka was walking towards her room with her eyes shut, It had been a long couple of hours

and all she wanted more then the world was to hide in her room and sleep for a few hours. However,

she couldn't manage to get the image of her friends lifeless body falling to the ground, she knew that

that image would haunt her for the rest of her life. She didn't even know if he was really dead or not,

and thinking that he was gone forever only made her feel even worse, but she had decided along time

ago that she deserved any punishment she could inflict upon herself. She wouldn't even allow herself

to think of the man she had so heartlessly just killed. for if she thought of every man she killed she

would surely go insane.

'Lady Zetsume!'

Taka turned to see a woman perhaps a year older then her come dashing towards her. This woman

had short flaming red hair and emerald green eyes, she smiled slightly as she came to a casual stop.

'may I help you?'

taka asked, thinking of how familiar this woman looked though she had never met her before.

'We need you're help-some prisoners have over powered our guards and are trying to excape.'

the woman replied breathlessly.

'Show me where they are!'

Taka followed the woman, she usually didn't handle such problems but it was in her dosier that she

had recieved 165/166 points on over all combat battle.

'They've moved to the hangers-they're going to try and steal a mobile suit.'

'not if I can help it.'

the two rounded a corner and saw they're destination at the end of the hall.

Avi fired the large rifle, taking down a soldier with a painful scream.

'Miho, get us outta here!'

She yelled over her shoulder at Miho who was desperatly trying to hot wire one of the trucks.

Ryder and Kyo were also holding the soldiers back as best they could-but were starting to

feel tired from holding the heavy guns for so long.

'This' nuts-these guys are trained perfessionals.'

Kyo yelled over the gun fire to his friends, who barely acknowledged him.

'I know,but keep fireing...'

growled Ryder as he shot down two more soldiers- he had to keep fighting for he knew that if

they were to be recaught that they would surely be killed.

'Got it!'

Miho cried as she lept up with joy, she spun around but the grin on her face vanished as a single

shot rang through the air.

'AAAgggghhhhh.'

'MIHO!'

the others yelled, watching as Miho fell to the ground, blood gushing from her chest wound. All

fireing had ceased as the soldiers turned to see who had shot the girl. Kyo and Avi ran, dropping

their weapons to aid their friend, while Ryder moved to protect the others, he was glaring angerly

at the sharpshooter. Standing on the top of a walk way stood a woman still posed and smoke

raising from her silver sleek gun.

'Don't move or you'll all suffer like you're friend!'

She commanded with a cold and loathing tone of voice, she ment business and wasn't afraid to shoot

the others if they gave her a reason to.

Miho raised her head and tried to stand, but Kyo held her down-if she moved she would only make

things worse for both her and the others.

'Don't move...'

he whispered in her ear, Miho shook her head in defiance, she had to see the face of the woman who

had shot her.

'I have to...It sounds like...'

Miho couldn't finish her sentence as she was overcome by a coughing fit.

'How can you be so cold and shoot another human being like that!? it's not right!'

Avi yelled, jumping to her feet and storming forwards, Ryder watched as Avi was just passing him.

Annoyed Taka fired her gun so that the bullet would end just short of this girl-Avi lept back in shock.

'Why don't you just let us go? we've done nothing and there's no point in keeping us here.'

Kyo said cooly, trying to reason with the trigger happy woman, but it didn't seem to do any good.

'Get Miho in the truck-we're leaving wheither they let us or not.'

Ryder hissed at Kyo who slowly nodded and managed to pull Miho to her feet, she was half concioius

'I said...Don't MOVE!'

Taka yelled, aiming the gun at Kyo's leg now, willing to shoot if the stupid kids wouldn't listen to her.

'Come and stop us!'

Ryder yelled as he opened fire on the woman and the remaining soldiers, all took for cover instantly.

Kyo had Miho resting in the back seat of the truck and had jumped into the driver's seat. Avi lept

in beside Miho and held the door open for Ryder.

'C'mon Ryder-let's go before they lock us in!'

she yelled.

Ryder ignored his friends, he had lost sight of the woman and was finding it unnerving. he knew that

he hadn't shot her-he wasn't aiming to shoot, just to keep the soldiers at bay while he and his friends

exacpe.

'RYDER! look out!'

Avi yelled, but as Ryder twisted to see what was going on, he was knocked off his feet by the woman

rushing him with a body slam. he had been off balance and landed on the ground in a crumpled heap.

The woman chuckled as she pulled her gun out and leveled it with Ryder's head, she had her eyes

narrowed in anger at the group.

'Don't any of you try and play hero or I'll kill you're little friend.'

she growled, seeing both Kyo and Avi half out of the truck to help Ryder.

'Get Up!'

Taka demanded, kicking Ryder's foot, he had his jacket covering his face and he groaned-his arm

was still in a lot of pain and the stress he had put it under was catching up with him.

'Move! Now!'

taka yelled, anger filled her voice at how foolish the kids were being, what had they been thinking-

trying to fight their way out of this military base.

'Fine!'

Ryder stood to his feet, and glared angerly at the woman. Taka's expression fell as she saw the face

of the boy she had been threatening to kill. There was no way, it was impossible,Taka's hand began

to shake as she looked Ryder over. She had to be mistaken, the boy infront of her and the other three

could not be her long lost friends. They had grown alot since she had last seen them, but so had she-

no, it was deffinatly them....

'What's your problem!?'

Ryder growled, not liking how this woman was eyeing him, though there was something strange about

her, something almost familiar.

'My problem is you, Ryder Hakashi. You and your friends.'

Taka couldn't explain the feeling she felt right now, it was like she wanted to break down and cry and

hug each of them but at the same time she wanted to slap them all in the face for not coming to find

her. It hurt to see the four of them working together, getting themselves in touble and having fun like

old times, while she was busy trying to destroy their world.

'How do you know my name....'

'That's none of your business.'

she said in a cold and deadly tone, surprised that Ryder didn't reconize her, she hadn't changed that

much or at least she didn't think she did. She had matured alot though, finding herself thinking of her

old friends as kids while they were older or the same age as she was. Ryder was watching her

out of one of his eyes, trying not to look her straight in the face as he had a bitter expression on his

face.

'Tell me, if you and your friends could so easily find each other, why didn't you find and save the one

that had truly needed it?'

'What are...what?'

Ryder was glaring at Taka in confusion and looking like she had lost her mind, and maybe she had.

Avi was intensly looking from Taka to Ryder and back again, she shook her head, this was insane-

this woman was going to kill them over some stupid thing like thinking she had known them.

'You've obviously mistaken us...we don't know you...'

'I said, DON'T MOVE!'

Taka turned her gun to Avi who froze instantly-Ryder took the oppertunity to strike. He kicked the

gun from Taka's hands and slammed her to the ground before leaping over her and into the truck

after Avi.

'Floor it!'

he yelled as Kyo sped out of the base' hanger, none of them looking back-Miho laying passed out in

the back of the truck,she let out a small moan.

'we'll get you help soon.'

Ryder promised, looking down at her.

Taka stood to her feet and picked up her gun, there was a smudge where Ryder had kicked it on the

butt of the gun.

'Lady Zetsume.'

yelled the red haired girl as she ran towards Taka, who looked like she didn't even notice the girl.

'They've forgotten me...'

she whispered to herself, biting back the wave of tears that wanted to break free of their prison behind

her eyes. she balled one hand angerly, it was shaking violently and she hung her head, trying to calm

herself.

'Lady Zetsume?'

'Those kids are nothing more but a waste of time.'

'huh.'

Taka began to walk away, she had to get away from people.

'How could they have forgotten me? was I just there for their own amusement...did they even really

care? How could the lost be forgotten so easily?'

she thought to herself as she walked away from the hangers and towards her room, finding herself

back in the same spot she had been the first time she had been when the red haired woman had

stopped her.

'Why is life so complicated?'

she sighed, seeing that she had blood on her arm from Ryder-he had been hurt and it wasn't from her.

'Lady Zetsume!'

an Officer jogged to Taka's side, she was surprised to see him wearing the badge from her ship.

'What is it?'

'There is a transmission for you in the communications room. please follow me.'

'alright.'

She sighed and let herself be lead away again, she fell a few paces behind the mysterious officer, she

was in no hurry to have some 'noble' yell at her for not having her mission completed yet or something

-she huffed, she was only human what more could they expect from her?

'Just in there ma'am.'

'thank you.'

the officer bowed and walked briskly back the way they had come. Taka watched him for a moment,

wondering where he had come from and where he was going. she then walked into the large but

dimly lit communications room. She tilted her head in confusion, all transmission screens were off and

there wasn't anyone manning the radios.

'Ah, it's about time you showed up-I was starting to wonder if I'd see you again...'

Taka spun around to face the source of the voice talking to her, and almost fell over into an empty

chair. There standing half hidden by shadows grinning widely was a person in a ranking officer's

uniform.

'Now, aren't you going to tell me how good it is to see me?'

he laughed lightly, Taka was still silent, this time she couldn't hold the tears back but they were tears

of joy....Zash was Alive!

**Next Episode**

_The Dark Class Unit pilots are reunited, but are sent out on a new mission before they_

_could leave to locate the other Gundams. They must attend a gala and assinate the president_

_of the Earth forces. Miho is still in pretty bad shape, but luckily her friends found a doctor that was_

_still in town. she manages to reveal the reason she wanted to move when she had been shot, and_

_tell the others who she thought the woman was...._

_Episode Four: Federation Assination._


	4. Episode Four

**Previously:**

_Ryder and friends managed to excape to freedom after a heated confritation. Now they must find the Ronin Gundams_

_before the Nexis Union does. The four friends are racing against time and with one of their own injured, makes things_

_slower. Will they manage to recover the Gundams in time?_

_**Episode Four: **_**Federation Assination**

Miho opened her eyes to find herself in a brightly light medical room and her three friends standing around looking worried.

She didn't know how long she had been out, but it looked like it had been at least a day due to the old bloody bandages that laid

in a trashbin by her bed. Miho then grinned slightly, no one had noticed she was awake yet-even though her body was in pain she

knew that her friends had done the best they could to help her and that made all the pain in the world disappear.

'so, who died?'

Miho said as normally as she could without having pain waver throughout her voice.

'Miho! you're awake!'

Avi and Kyo smiled as they walked up to Miho's side-Kyo placed a hand on miho's shoulder. Ryder was leaning against a wall

staring out the window-he looked as if he were lost in thought. Miho tilted her head and watched Ryder for a while, He pushed

himself off of the wall and looked at the other three. Miho had a feeling she knew what he was planning on doing, she knew that

he knew more then either Kyo or Avi did about what was going on and about that mysterious woman.

'Ryder...'

"I'm glad you're alright, Miho. I'll see you guys later...'

Avi and Kyo looked at each other confused as Miho tried to leap out of bed to stop him, but was shoved back by Avi, which only

caused Miho to feel the full pain of her injury.

'Ryder...you know it's too dangerous to go out....'

'I have to.'

With that Ryder dashed out of the room and Miho tried to get out of bed again, this time succedding only to have Kyo grab her

by the shoulders and force her to sit back down on the bed. Avi growled angerly and ran after Ryder, she wasn't impressed that

he was just leaving them and at a time like this.

'Ryder! Where the Hell are you going!?'

she shouted at him down the long white hallway-Ryder paused briefly to glance at her.

'Miho knows.'

with that he had dashed down another hallway and out of sight and ear shot of Avi. Confused and annoyed Avi returned to Miho's

room to see Miho and Kyo wrestling on the edge of the bed, one move and either one of them would end up on the floor with a

bloody mouth.

'Miho, why'd Ryder take off? what do you know?'

Avi demanded while crossing her arms infront of her chest, she sat on a table and watched as Kyo tried to restrain Miho who was

still trying to stop Ryder. With a sigh, Miho stopped and leaned back with a shudder of pain,much to Kyo's relief.

'He's gone to do two things, both are very dangerous and stupid of him to go alone....firstly, he's going to confront the woman

who shot me, which I'm shocked that neither of you reconized. and the second thing is that he's gone for at least one of the

Gundams.'

Avi and Kyo stopped and thought about what they had just been told, and why it was odd that they hadn't reconized the woman

who shot Miho, even if they could neither of them got a very good look at her face to begin with.

'so, why didn't he tell any of us?'

'He didn't want any of us to get injured, or killed by following him.'

replied Miho pointing to herself as proof of what could happen to them if they had tagged alone with him.

'heh, and what's so important about this woman...'

Avi huffed, not liking Miho's last answer.

'before I tell you who she is and why you should have reconized her, can one or both of you answer me this....How'd we get out

of that base alive?'

She looked from Kyo to Avi and back again waiting for an answer from either of them.

'we Nearly didn't after we excaped that hanger...'

replied Avi as she recalled their struggle to excape the base only hours earlier...

Kyo sped across the grassy path towards the security gates-Avi and Miho were in the back of the truck and the blood

from Miho's wound hadn't stopped yet. Ryder was sitting beside Kyo reloading his stolen gun and remaining silent, just then the

truck went into a skidding hault and the group was thrown foreward in their seats. Standing in a long line infront of the truck was

two dozen or more soldiers, who all had their guns aimed at the truck.

'Surrender now or prepare to be shot!'

one of the men yelled at the four. All eyes where on Kyo as he staired angerly out the front window, with a strange and almost

twisted smirk Kyo looked back at his friends.

'Not Bloody likely.'

He grinned and hit the gas pedal, sending the truck into a spin until it was parrallel with the soldiers, he raced just inches from the

guns as the truck went as fast as it possibly could.The soldiers slightly stunned that their warning had been ignored began to open

fire on the truck, however it's armour wasn't damaged from the bullets. When they got a good view the soldiers began to aim and

shoot at the wheels of the truck hoping to send it into a rolling crash. Kyo had to put all his driving experience to the test to avoid

being shot and probably killing them all. The truck went flying over a small hill and was out of range of the soldier's gunfire, but

the four knew that they weren't out of dangerous grasp just yet, they still had to make it off of the base grounds.

'Miho's still bleeding! we need to get out of here and soon or she'll die!'

exclaimed Avi as she tried to keep pressure on the wound with bandages she had found in the backseat.

'I know....'

Kyo was cut off as a large explosion infront of them made him swirve and keep all four wheels on the ground at the same time

as trying to figure out what and where the explosion had come from. He glanced in the rearveiw mirror and saw strange metalic

objects rising from the ground, that's when he relized what they were and that he had to get the truck out of there as fast as

possible.

'Lazer Cannons...'

He declared as more explosions errupted all around the truck and Kyo cursed profoundly as he kept spining the truck to avoid

the shots. He turned sharply and managed to get past the last explosion fine, however, they were now coming up to the back of

the base and he figured this was were he would have to put his driving to the max test.

'I don't like how the cannons have stopped.'

Kyo sighed, glancing down at the gas gage and seeing that the truck had three quarters of a tank left, if they lived through all this,

it should be just enough to get them back to town. Then again, he didn't know how far they were from town and if they were even

still in the same country. He was trying to figure out how they would survive if they had a long way to go when suddenly a large

explosion in the back of the truck made him come to a stop and the others cry out in surprise.He spun around in his seat to see the

whole back of the truck was damaged badly, the back seat was torn open and one of the wheels had been blown off. the air was

thick with smoke and exhaust. Kyo turned back to the front as if expecting to see more cannons, but it looked clear all except for

the odd shaped mounds in the ground.

'Mines...'

Ryder noted as he looked at the many mines in front of them and of those behind them, he then looked at Kyo who was silent and

at a loss of words for a moment. Kyo shook his uncertainity away and drove on with more caution then he would liked to have

used, but to evoid being blown to bits, he had no other choice. It was a long and heart renching few minutes as Kyo slowly drove

past the mines,knowing that any disturbance and they would detinate, sending them into oblivion. Kyo was so intensly concintrating

on his driving that he didn't notice Miho give a small whimper of pain as Avi tried to move her closer to the front seat. It didn't seem

possible, but as soon as Kyo started to speed up the others knew that he had gotten them through the mine field and was now

racing straight towards the gates and hopefully freedom.

'Hey, Ryder-after all this you'd better remember that code.'

Kyo glanced over at Ryder as he floored it all the way to the gate and the security panal which was on Ryder's side of the truck.

It would appear that the soldiers were certain that they had been killed by one of the traps, not a single personalle worker was to

be seen, which made their excape eerily easy. Ryder punched in the numbers into the panal, it hadn't been more then half an hour

ago when they had snuck into a room just before the hanger fight and accessed a computer to see what data the chip that Ryder

was given held. It had many access codes and plans for various Nexis projects, but they had only been interested in knowing how

to get out and where to find the Gundams. They would have been in that room longer , if only they hadn't of been spotted by a

minor soldier, which they easily disposed of.

'Hurry up, before they realize we're not dead.'

Avi growled impatienly

'Done!'

Ryder leaned back and waited for the access code to go through, he hoped that he hadn't made a mistake, for he knew that the

alarms would ring and with all of them tired they wouldn't be able to dodge the soldiers or any other attack this time.

'Thank you.'

came a computerized voice and the gates opend, the group breathed a sigh of relief as Kyo drove them off the grounds and down

a small winding path. They were safe for now, but needed to find a place to take Miho, who looked worse and worse as the

minutes ticked by . Luckily when they finally got back to town they found that the old hospitel was still in use and they were able

to get Miho the medical assitance that she needed. The doctor had pulled the bullet from her, and not a moment too soon as if it

had stayed in her body any longer she would have to deal with blood poisoning and with a limited amount of instruments, she

would have most likely died from that ailment.

A shot rang out, sending all the world's leaders into a confused state of panic-they had all been sitting in a theatre like room

waiting for the man who had asked them all to gather here on this day. The room was filled with worry and concern as they all

knew that for them to all be in one area like this was just asking for a major strike from the Nexis Union, who wouldn't miss an

opertunity like this to take a major lead in the war. Several more shots rang out and by this time the Prime Minister from Gernovia

was about to leave when the door's flew open. Standing in the door way was a tall skinny man with crooked glasses-blood dripped

from a large wound in his chest; the room fell silent. This man had been the President of the Earth Militaria's second hand man.

'The...The...President....Is...Dead....'

with a shuddering gasp of breath the man topled onto the ground, now also dead. This sent everyone in the room into chaos-they

were all trying to leave before they were the next one's to be killed, the only thing on their lips was 'Nexis Assines.' Now that the

president was dead the Earth would be weakened and Nexis would take the next step in their plan. with Limited weapons on Earth

and all space compatable weapons still being tested- Earth was at a very serious disadvantage.

Standing over the body of the dead president was a young woman with long brown hair-her pink and white gown stained with

tears from her and the blood from the president. She was trembling all over as she tried to figure out why this had happened. the

president had called this meeting to talk about a peace treaty he had planned, hopefully to end the war. He knew that too many good

men and woman had died and would die if this war carried on; so he had proposed to make peace with the enemy. It was clearn now

that Nexis didn't want peace-they wanted world domination and would do anything to acheive it. The woman pulled the roll of

parchment from the president's hand and held it to her chest, glaring out a window and into the clouds.

'There will be peace, or my name isn't....'

'Miss Columbus, We must leave at once.'

'Yes, of course.'

she nodded and followed the well build body guard out of the room-it was now her time to be strong and show the world that they

still have hope. she would moarn the loss of her father later, now was not the place nor the time to do so.

Meanwhile, Ryder was running along the empty halls, having just watched everyone leave. He had to find the right door and quick

before more soldiers arrived to do a thorough search of the building.He knew that he was on their side, but figured that they wouldn't

understand why he was sneaking around right after there had been an assination. Ryder was certain that the door was on this side of

the building, the side the murder had happened in. This building had only been built one year before the war had started and had been

used as a convention center during that time.

'Hurry Up!'

Ryder froze for only an instant as he heard the voice of a man approaching, he then threw open the first door he could and flew

into that room. Remaining as silent as possible as he listened to the footsteps walk past and out of range-he breathed a sigh of

relief when he turned around to look at what room he had run into. This was it, this was the room he had been searching for.

With a bitter sweet grin, Ryder walked to the center of the room and looked around, it was large library type room and he knew

that just beyond one of the walls was the secret entrence to the room the held a Gundam. He closed his eyes and tried to recall

which wall it had been, with everything that had happened in the past twenty four hours it was hard for him to concintrate. was it

the right wall with the duck painting or had it been the left wall with the mouse head mounted on it, he decided to try both, he had

a few minutes to spare. He walked over to the mouse head wall first, he ran his hand along it, pulled and poked at everything that

looked odd, he even went as far as to pull the mouse head off of the wall. Nothing. He was about to try the other wall when he

heard the door handle begin to rattle as it was being turned open. he looked around the room, there was no place to hide, no

way to excape, he was trapped and whoever was on that other side of the wall was not going to be happy to see him in this room.

**Next Episode**

_Ryder is confronted by the President's assine and must make a quick excape if he plans to_

_survive to help defeat the Nexis Union. The war is far from ending as the Earth forces go on a _

_sweeping rampage looking for any or all suspecious people-will Miho and Kyo be caught in this? _

_Also Avi, has tried to follow Ryder but has gotten herself into more trouble then she can handle._

_With the four seperated,their chances of survival thin. But there is a glimmer of hope as the first_

_of the hidden Ronin class Gundams appears to bring light to the darkening day._

_Episode Five : The Chronos Revealed._


	5. Episode Five

**Previously:**

_Ryder is in a tight spot as he is trapped in a room with no apparent hiding place and someone is about to walk in and _

_find him-He doesn't know who it may be, but anyway he looks at it he is in trouble no matter what and he must find the secret_

_entrance to find the Gundam. meanwhile Avi and Kyo retell their desperate tale of how the four of them escaped from the Nexis'_

_base._

_**Episode Five: **_** The Chronos Revealed**

The door swung open and Ryder dove behind a sofa, he heard what sounded like two people entering the room- a thick

silence filled the room until the door shut behind them.

'This room will do.'

a man said as he locked the door which made a small mechanical click, Ryder growled angerly and balled while keeping his

breathing calm and steady, knowing that if he gave into the feeling in the pit of his stomache he surely would give himself away.

the seconds felt like hours and as each one past he could feel his heart pounding harder in his chest.

'Starting Transmission.'

a woman said to the man, Ryder narrowed his eyes slightly as he reconized this voice this time. It was that of the woman who had

shot Miho and had attacked them at the Nexis base.Ryder reached for his gun at his belt and contemplated taking the two by

surprise, however he decided to drop the idea as he knew that at least one of them would be able to shot him a few times if he

attacked them.

'Sir...The job has been done. Commander Zash and I are just about to leave the building before the Earth Militaria shows up.

No sir...Sir? Alright, one of us will pick up the hostage from Jack on the way back. Taka out.'

Ryder listened carefully to the confersation Taka had had with her obvious superior and tried to figure out what it was that they

were talking about. The job must have been the assination of the President, Ryder couldn't believe that the woman standing in the

same room was the same Taka he had known. That Taka would never have been able to live with herself if she had taken alife or

had been involved in the death of someone-but then again, war does funny things to people and he knew that she had changed

greatly since he last saw her. He recalled the days when Taka used to be a hyper young woman who found almost everything funny

and was always being 'strange', how she would have some new wild daydream adventure almost every other day. Ryder shook his

head and had to tell himself that this new Taka was the enemy and if it came down to it, he would stop her and the people she

worked for at all costs. what they were doing was wrong and was pointless all it had accomplished was fear, chaos and mass death.

He returned to listening to Taka and Zash talk amongst each other,

'So, now we're being told to pick up hostages? typical.'

Zash said with a dark synical laugh and Taka sighed, she said something that Ryder couldn't make out as she was talking in almost

a whisper. Taka pulled her hair back and turned to leave the room but promptly stopped when she felt Zash' hand on her shoulder,

she looked back at him questioningly and saw that he wasn't looking at her. Zash was intensly starring at the roof, something Taka

hadn't noticed was that the ceiling was completly covered in glass mirrors-they're purpose was unclear by looking around, but it

was probably for more then just decoration. She saw that on the other side of the room crouched behind one of the sofa's was a

boy-it was Ryder and he seemed unaware of the mirrors or the fact that he had been spotted by the two Nexis soldiers. A part of

Taka wanted to call out to warn Ryder but she knew that she couldn't, she was in a war and if Ryder got in the way then he was

concidered an enemy and he had proved so far that he was siding with the Earth forces. Zash had his gun out lightning quick and

shot the mirror panal above Ryder-who was taken by surprise as the glass rained down on him.Ryder rolled out of his hiding spot

and shot back in defense. he hadn't been aiming as all his bullets missed their marks and hit the wall or the glass panals sending

even more glass showering down onto the floor. To avoid being shot he lept to his left towards the wall with the painting and what

he prayed was the secret door. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as Zash almost lazily raised his gun and shot once

at Ryder who crashed down on a wooden table sending it into pieces. Ryder gasped as he felt the blinding pain run through him and

for a moment he didn't understand what was going on, but then he looked at his shoulder and saw blood staining his shirt and jacket.

'shit.'

he growled fumbling around in the wooden wreckage for his gun that he had invulentarily dropped when he had been shot, it was

out of reach and he knew that he couldn't grab it even if he hadn't been injured by Zash.

'What do we have here? Trying to be a hero? A little out of YOUR league.'

'A hero-hardly...Try the person who's going to Kill you!'

spat Ryder as he shakily stood to his feet, his body whining at him for putting it through so much stress while it was injured-he saw

that Zash' gun stayed level with his head as he moved and knew that Zash wouldn't miss his mark. He put one hand on the wall to

support himself before he realized that he was exactly where he wanted to be-he smirked slightly and watched Zash.

'This is a WAR-this isn't a Little Game that kids, like you, can play. There are no 'time outs' and 'safe squares'...this is Real life!'

Zash lectured Ryder who now wasn't paying attention to him but instead staring intensly at Taka. She returned the look with her dark

eyes, her face was blank and unreadable but Ryder could sense what she was feeling without her even saying anything. Zash was

annoyed that Ryder wasn't listening to him and he looked from Ryder to Taka-who frowned and narrowed her eyes into the darkest

look Ryder had ever been given.

'Once was forgettable....Twice Unforgiveable...You should have stayed out of this when you had the chance...now I have no choice,

but to make you pay for your crimes against the Nexis Union.'

Taka spoke in a dark voice and pulled out her gun as Zash glanced at her almost as if he had never seen her act like this before.

'Is that a fact...'

Ryder retorted with a snort, he no longer desired to try and talk his way out of this as he found it a waste of time and he kne that

they would just as happily shoot him dead.

'Then...The next time we Meet...I will Kill You, Taka Zetsume!'

He growled and lunged at the painting,pulling it down and hearing a hiss as a camoflauged door slid open and he stumbled in and

just as he did the door slammed shut behind him with a loud 'clunk'. On the other side of the wall he could hear both Zash' and

Taka's angry calls and their attempts to open the door, but apparently it could only be opened once before self locking forever.

'10.00 MINUTES UNTIL DETINATION! EVACUATE THROUGH THE NEAREST EXIT.'

A loud computerized voice warned-Ryder took several deep stuttering breaths as he braced himself to go through more pain as

with every step he took he would put pressure on his wound.

'9.59 MINUTES'

He staggered along the dark and oddly cold hallway, all other noise was drowned out by the computers constant warnings-after a

few steps he had to put his hand on his shoulder to put pressure on the wound and to try and stop the bleeding, though it wasn't

doing much good. He had to fight back the urges to lay down and just give into the pain and sleep, he knew he would never wake

if he did and he had too much to do before he would allow himself to die.

'8.30 MINUTES"

Ryder was growing annoyed as it seemed that the hallway would never end, though it was probably just because he was walking

slowly and each second felt like an hour. Time was slipping away, and that was time Ryder didn't have to waste on this hallway.

'5 MINUTES'

his thoughts had gone numb as he just concintrated on getting to the end of the hallway. suddenly the wall he had been using for

support gave way and he almost fell before he managed to shoot one foot out to catch himself-he was in a large room and it took

him a few seconds to process this as he looked around the room. His eyes stopped on a large object in the dead center of the

room, half covered by a large cloth.

'3 MINUTES.'

it was Metalic blue and silver, it was the Gundam Ryder had been searching for...the first of the Ronin class Gundams. It looked

almost alien in this cold bare room. Ryder admired it-inspecting every detail of it and wondered how powerful this machine was-

he knew that it had been made lovingly and that it would more then likely have just as much care taken into its weaponry.

'1.59 MINUTES'

Ryder was unimpressed that he had wasted that much time on just looking at the mech when he should be trying to get it out of the

place before both it and he were destroyed. He pulled himself onto the laying gundam and jumped into the open cockpit. He was

surprised at how basic it looked at first, but then he didn't know what he was sappoused to do at first and there were many

buttons and switches.

'1.05 MINUTES'

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in,

'c'mon you don't want to be destroyed before you had a chance to fight.'

he thought as he let his senses guide him and uncharacteristically put all his faith in chance...he switched a switch and waited, the

Gundam didn't respond and he cursed loudly, he knew it was too late to excape the hidden lab without the gundam. Just then all

the power flickered on and Ryder gave a small cheer.

'.32 SECONDS'

It was do or die time now-with the cockpit automactically closing Ryder grabbed two levers and pushed them foreward at the same

time the Gundam began to stand up with a loud groan from its joints.

'.15 SECONDS'

'I knew you didn't want it to end yet.'

he smirked as he found it amusing that he was talking to the gundam, but no one could hear him and he would never tell them that he

had talked to the machine.

'TEN...NINE...EIGHT....SEVEN....SIX....FIVE....FOUR....THREE...TWO...ONE...'

There was complete silence just as then the convention center and surrounding area was engulfed by a brilliant yellow and red light

just before it was detroyed by a huge explosion. Chunks of building and earth were blown all over the place, leaving fires to run

rampant throughout the ruines, giving off large bellowing clouds of smoke. It was a matter of moments before the Earth Militaria

had figured out what had happened and began to drench the area with large amounts of water. In all the chaos no one noticed two

glowing white orbs glaring down at the workers like some smoke warrior protecting its minions. the orbs disappeared into the dark

smoke just as quickly as they had appeared and no one would know just how close they had been to a Gundam......

Kyo sighed as he followed a limpig and barefoot Miho down the hospital staircase since there hadn't been power to the

building since the war started. Miho was still weak and in pain from her wound, but she refused to stay in bed when both Ryder and

Avi were running around probably getting themselves into trouble. Kyo had protested about them leaving the hospital room as it was

the safest place for them and she was far from well enough to be walking around, but Miho wouldn't have any of it.

'I think we're almost on the ground level!'

Miho declared, checking the number on the steal door as she passed the small landing and went down another flight of stairs.

'aw, c'mon at least put your shoes on, miho.'

'can't...no time...'

she replied, the stolen hospital robes tied around her for extra warmth-Miho looked like she had just escaped from an insane

asylum as she was walking with a limp and her hair was wildly tossed about making her look out of her mind.Kyo grinned as he

thought of what would happen if they ran across anyone while Miho looked like this, it would be most amusing he decided.

keeping a close eye on her would also make him look like he was a warden trying to bring the patient back, but he knew that the

real reason was that if he let Miho out on her own she would get into trouble in one way or another.

'I win! I win!'

Miho giggled loudly as she dashed out of the stairwell and towards the front doors, slowing only to look back and see that Kyo

was still at the top of the last landing.

'c'mon Kyo-hurry up!'

'Miho...'

Kyo sighed, he skipped the last five steps and began to stride across the lobby as Miho danced out of the building and onto the

street with no regard to her own safety whatsoever. Miho stopped to wait for kyo, she slipped her hand into the robe to make sure

that she hadn't lost the bottle of pain killers, she had a feeling that they would come into use, if there was any left after she was

finished with them.She spun around faster then she should of as she had heard someone coming up behind her and she thought

it was Kyo, she had her mouth open as she was about to say something, but stopped as she heard a strange voice shouting at her.

Kyo came skidding out of the hospital and raced towards miho followed by a man in a military uniform and large rifle followed him

in hot persuit.

'wha?'

Miho was confused as to what was happening and why Kyo was being chased by a man who literally came out of no where.Kyo

grabbed her by the elbow and began to force her to run, she was still confused and Kyo wasn't giving her any answers as to what

was happening. they were heading towards a cluster of half destroyed buildings in hopes to lose the man in the maze like mess, but

when an explosion erupted in front of them they both came to a skidding hault and Miho let out a small whimper of pain. Kyo turned

sharply to face the soldier who had the rifle aimed at them and was still yelling at them.

'Kyo, what happened?'

miho whispered but Kyo didn't reply, he kept his focuse on the soldier.

'You are both in violation of code 92JB743-Suspection of tampering with Medical supplies.'

the soldier yelled, his face red from both anger and from running after the two.

'But we...haven't done anything...'

tried to tell the soldier, but he wouldn't hear it, he raised his rifle in her direction and told her to shut up. this angered Miho greatly

and she hoped that the soldier, even though he was an Earth Force soldier, would get what was coming to him. couldn't he see that

neither of them had done any such thing-Miho glanced at Kyo, for just an instant she wondered if he had done something, he had

taken more time then it should have to walk across the lobby. She then mentally slapped herself and glared at the man infront of them

it was his fault that she was having all these strange thoughts go through her mind.

'You both are to come with me. You can explain yourselves to the General and maybe he will be more lenient then I would if I were

in his place.'

Miho nodded bitterly, but she wanted to know why he thought they had done anything like tamper with supplies, Kyo slowly

followed as the two were being directed as to where to go. Miho hoped that the General was a more reasonable man and that he

would understand that they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and that it was all a big mistake. Kyo was silent and looked

oddly worried about something, but miho didn't want to ask as then the soldier would inquire about other things-things he needn't

know. Miho wasn't all that worried about what would happen to them as she was sure that everything would be righted, however,

she was concerned of what would happen if the soldier or anyone else noticed that she had an awful wound. And if anyone took a

look at it they would see that it was a bullet wound and that would lead to more questions, and if they were to find out that she and

kyo had been to the Nexis base, they would be in deep trouble or used as pawns to tell the Earth soldiers where the base was.Miho

decided to plot a reasonable and believable story behind the wound if anyone was to ask, it was better to be prepared then to be

caught off guard and look more suspecious. while she walked she slipped her right hand into her pants pocket and wrapped her

fingers around the bullet that had been extracted from her-it was her new good luck charm and she planned to put it on a necklace

when she got the chance. The three had been walking for ten minutes when the ground began to shake violently-it was a strong

Earthquake, but they didn't get such things in this part of the world. the soldier wasted no time in radioing the rest of his platoon,

'What's going on over there? come in captain!'

all that came back was static, the soldier played around with the radio for a few minutes longer but still got no reply. not too far from

them they could hear shouts of pain and gunfire, the soldier threw the useless walkie talkie down and ran in the direction of the shouts

with no care of what was causing the other men to fire their guns. The man yelled something just before he was engulfed by a giant

wall of fire, both Miho and Kyo jumped in surprise as they watched the soldier wither in severe pain and try to escape the flames.

The air was full of the stench of burning flesh-Kyo and Miho gagged on the thick smell before covering their faces and watched,

both frozen in horror at the gruetique scene infront of them.

'What's going on!?'

Kyo coughed looking over at a shrugging Miho, she didn't understand it either, it seemed almost like some sort of nightmare.

the ground began to shake again and a tunnel of fire came barreling towards them, they had nowhere to go or to hide from the

deadly flames. Miho wrapped her fingers tighter around the bullet in her pocket and closed her eyes, feeling the heat melt some of

the plastic on the hospital robes. The roar of the flames as the rushed foreward drowned everything out-Miho knew that in a few

short seconds both her and Kyo would just be charred bodies just like the solider moments before. She hadn't thought this was the

way or the place she would die, but she wasn't about to deny it, if she had to die , then she would accept that .

'Our Death's won't be in vain....'

She thought as she felt a shadow from the flames pass by her and she waited for the burning to follow....

Next Episode

_Avi is over head while on her search for Ryder, when she searches her soul she finds that she has more hatred towards the_

_Nexis Union then she even had known. while on her way, she is confronted by a Nexis Soldier and she is not about to let the _

_oppertunity pass her by...will kyo and Miho survive the mysterious fire attack and where had it come from? And where's Ryder?_

_Everyone has a problem of their own, and it all seems to have started right after Ryder left them in the hospital...._

_Episode Six_: _Foreshadow of "Misery"_


	6. Episode Six

**Previously:**

_Ryder managed to excape an potentially deadly confrontation with Zash and Taka with only_

_minor injuries. He had reached the first of the Ronin class Gundams but did he survive the self _

_destruct system he had triggered by entering the secret passage. Meanwhile Miho and Kyo had had_

_bad luck by running into a soldier and even worse luck being trapped right in the path of a massive_

_firewall-it doesn't look good for any of them..._

**_Episode Six: _ Foreshadow of 'Misery'**

It had been hours and Avi felt that she had looked everywhere for Ryder, it was like he had just

disappeared without a trace. The sun was beginning to set and her feet ached from running around all

day. With a huff she decided to head to the old downtown district of the city, if she didn't find him by

the time she got home, then he obviously didn't want to be found. Her useually brown boots were

black and grey from all the soot and dust she had walked through looking in old buildings for Ryder,

she made a mental note to make him get her a new pair of boots, for these one's were ruined now. As

Avi walked down the crumbled and broken old main highway, she felt slightly nervous, it was so quiet

and she felt like she was the last person on Earth. The strange feeling melted away to anger, she kicked

a broken piece of cement and growled at how unfair it all was. This city, no matter how dull it had

been, had been a home to not only her and her friends, but thousands of others and now it was

nothing more then a ghost town. She had never told anyone else, but Avi would never forgive the

Nexis Union for what they had done and would make them pay no matter what. She had a secret

vow to make any Nexis soldier feel the pain they constantly pile onto the innocent people of the

Earth. Avi growled and slammed her foot into a wall, causing it to crumble and fall back-she began

to cough uncontrollably as dirt flew in the air all around her. As she continued on, she decided that if

she ever found herself at the controls at any Mobile suit she would use it against the Nexis Union.

Lost in thoughts of her fantasy of single handedly bringing the Nexis Union to it's Knee's she didn't

even feel the air's temperature rapidly dropping and her thin clothing no longer able to block out the

weather. She stopped briefly at an old intersection where the local super food store had been, she

zipped up her blue sweater and looked around. She thought she heard someone following her, but

there was no one around, not even the rubble seemed to be making noise. she shrugged it off as her

being paranoid about the past happenings and went to cross the road when suddenly a large black

truck pulled infront of her, blocking her path. She skidded to a stop as she reconized the truck as the

same type as the one her friends and her had excaped in.

'Shit...'

She growled, and got ready to make a mad dash for it, however no soldiers came rushing out with

their guns drawn. after inspecting the truck for a few minutes, Avi decided to try and carry on as if

it ment nothing. She passed the truck, constantly expecting to be shot or grabbed by some blood

thirsty Nexis soldier. She had almost reached the other side of the road when she heard the door of

the truck swing open and someone come chasing after her. Her first instinct was to run, but the more

bolder and angery part of her told her stay put and confront the enemy. She spun around, fists balled,

to face the person coming at her. It was a boy no older then her, with brilliant red hair, he was

wearing a blue Nexis uniform-this made her glare turn from a 'piss off' to a 'I hate you' glare- the boy

was unaware of the meaning of the change of expression on the girl's face. Avi took note of a pistol

around the boy's waist and calculated how close he would have to be for her to grab it from him

successfully.

'What the Hell do you want?'

She demanded, getting straight to the matter instead of playing dumb which would ultimately annoy the

boy and lower her chances of getting out of this unscythed. The boy momentarily looked stunned by

the aggression of the girl, but regained his composure just as quickly as he had lost it.

'You're to come with me. Under arrest for the theift of Military property and preaching a major sacurity

block.'

He replied just as dark as Avi, his dark green eyes looked her over with contempt.

'I don't know about any damn Theift and security breach...'

she hissed, which wasn't a total lie as they didn't steal the truck, they borrowed without permission.

'Don't give me lies, now come with me peacefully and you won't get hurt.'

the boy continued, moving foreward to grab Avi by the arm, he assumed that she was unarmed. She

pulled away and smirked darkly, gaining a frown from the boy.

'I'll go peacefully the day Hell freezes over!'

she retarted, seeing that the boy was within reach and was unbalanced as he was reaching for her again.

Avi lunged foreward, her shoulder hit the boy in the chest and he fell back winded, and as he fell

She grabbed the pistol from it's holster and aimed it right at the stunned boy.

'Ah ha!'

she shouted truimphedly, the boy fell to one knee and lowered his head in a surrendering way-Avi

grinned widely feeling better for what she was doing. she stepped foreward, but the boy grabbed a

handfull of dirt and threw it in Avi's eyes. She yelped in pain and tried to back away, but it was too

late the boy was already back on his feet and with one swift move hit her in the back of the neck. Avi

collapsed to the ground, knocked out and unable to defend herself from any harm that may await her.

Jack Robbins picked up his pistol from the hands of the girl, he had managed to knock her out with

one swift but not leathal chop from his hand to the base of her neck. He bent over and struggled

slightly as he slung the girl over one shoulder and began to carry her to his truck, when a second

Nexis Truck pulled up beside his. Out stepped the commanding officer, Zash, accompanied by two

foot soldiers.

'Commander...'

Jack nodded unable to salute while holding the captive.

'Is this one of those pesky kids that escaped our mountain base?'

'Yessir! She gave me some trouble so I had no other choice but to knock her out. Thanks to

Lt. Zetsume's description I was able to find her.'

Jack replied, handing avi over to the two soldiers to deal with.

'very well.I want you to accompany these two men back to the base. She'll be on the next ship to

space. make sure of it.'

'As you wish.'

Zash nodded and turned to take the truck that Jack had been driving when he noticed that Jack was

still standing on the street.

'Soldier-is there a problem?'

'I know it's not my place to question my superiors, but why are we sending her to space?'

Zash smirked slightly, he could see a bit of himself when he was younger in Jack, his eyes saddened

to think that another youth had been sacrificed in the name of war.

'We're sending her there so that the proper punishment can be delt to her. we lack the tools or

authority to do much at this point in time.'

He replied as he hopped into the first truck and spun it around to drive back up the large hill. Jack

watched until he was gone before he jumped into the back of the second truck and looked down at

the girl.

'What does this war matter to you? why'd you ever get involved?'

he asked her, knowing full well he wouldn't get a response and it was more of a question to himself

then to the prisoner.

Miho opened her eyes when she realized that she hadn't been burnt to a toasty crisp-she looked

over at Kyo, He was looking just as confused. The heat was unbareable, but the wall of fire seemed

to have split and gone around them instead of right into them, it seemed impossible. Miho looked in

the direction the fire had come from only to see a large bluish silver object standing metres away,

shielding them from being scortched to death. Slowly both Miho and Kyo looked up to see the object

was a Gundam-while they were shielded, the Gundam was taking the full brunt force of the fire wave.

Though it was doing near to no damage, Miho couldn't help but feel bad-that they had needed the

help of the Gundam.

'What's going on?'

Kyo mouthed at Miho as they couldn't hear each other over the defening roar of the flames-Miho

shrugged as she tried to make sense of it.

'I don't get it, who's piloting that thing?'

she wondered, still staring at the machine in awe and admiration. All the fire was blown out by a huge

gust of wind that came from the Gundam as it moved, looking down at them.

'Are you two alright?'

came a familiar voice, but it had been broadcasted from inside the Gundam and was slightly distorted.

The cockpit opened and the two saw who the pilot was-Ryder sat in the chair and gave them a

quick salute as he smirked down at them.

'RYDER?'

Miho cried, thankful to see him alive and well as she had been so worried that he had gone and gotten

himself killed. Kyo waved up at Ryder, he had a large smile of relief on his face as he too had been

worried about the fate of his friend.

'Good to see you again!'

he called out, but was sure that Ryder hadn't been able to hear him. Suddenly there's a loud explosion

and Ryder's Gundam is jerked foreward-he frowns as he looks over his screens to see all was not

well. He shut the cockpit door and turned the Gundam back towards the remaining flame, he held a

sheild infront of him as a burrage of bullets bounced off and exploded around him.

'We've got to get out of here, for Ryder and our own safety!'

Kyo yelled as he dashed to grab Miho and began to pull her towards what appeared to be a safe

place to hide for now-this time she gave him no trouble as she too had been thinking the same thing.

Once Ryder knew for sure that his two friends were a good distance away, he lowered his shield

and lept into the air-avoiding the wave of bullets by millimetres. He was still new with the controls of

the Gudam but he had managed to figure out the basic controls, something he was forced to do with

the mysterious threat after him.

Miho watched as Ryder dodged bullets from what could only be discribed as a ghost as they

couldn't see where the bullets were coming from. It seemed that whatever was attacking Ryder was

invisible and yet even he seemed to not be able to get a lock on the enemy. She wondered if Ryder

had figured out that luring the enemy into the smoke from the fire would help him a little. Sure

enough Ryder vanished in a massive wall of white smoke.

'Wonder if it's the same Gundam from earlier...'

Kyo thought allowd,a point well taken. the Gundam they had seen earlier could obviously become

invisible and surely it's speed outranked any others by far-if this was what Ryder was dealing with,

then he might not be able to win this battle.

'Kyo, why'd you have to go and mension that?'

'What?'

Kyo looked at Miho as if he wasn't sure if he had done something wrong,Miho just shook her head

and returned to watching the fight.

The smoke was a good cover, but Ryder also was at a disadvantage, only relying on the rador

screen-which was clear and this was unnerving as he knew that his enemy was lurking just out of

view. He felt every nerve in his body spazism as he waited like a sitting duck for the enemy to make

the first move. That's when he sensed more then saw an object come shooting through the smoke

towards him. He deflected it with his shield and with his free hand shot off a good three dozen rounds

in the direction the object had come from. The smoke was thinning and he could see that he had

clearly missed his mark.

'Dammit!'

He growled and scanned the area-he was possitive that he was fighting and elite pilot in what could

only possibly be a Gundam made for surprise attacks. Behind him! Ryder spun around only to have

a large black object body slam into him. He stumbled but quickly managed to catch himself before

falling back. however, during his brief distraction the enemy bombarded him with a combination of

bullets and the wall of fire. Out of the flames he saw it coming like a slow motion movie, it was the

black Gundam holding a large scythe which was aimed to make a leathal blow. It moved swiftly and

as it swung the weapon back Ryder knew that it looked hopeless-the Gundam brought the scythe

down without an ounce of hesitation.

'RYDER!'

Miho cried as she saw Ryder's hopeless situation just before the wind blew a wall of smoke over the

two fighting giants and obstracting her view. Kyo had to hold her back from leaving the safe spot and

getting herself killed.

'Miho-stop!'

'No-let me go!'

she struggled as she tried to get out of Kyo's grip. A large explosion made them both cover their

eyes and were blown back by the shock wave. It felt as if one of the Gundams had been detroyed or

severly damaged.

'Oh-God-No...RYDER!"

Miho cried again but was drowned out by the noise of things collapsing around them, she crawled to

her feet, Kyo still had a hold on her arm though she wasn't in any position to move very fast. The

two of them looked over to see the smoke being blown away to reveal nothing left but a smauldering

crator and no sign of either Gundam...

Next Episode

_The Nexis Union sets up to send their latest weapon to their space base, on this shipment _

_is also a few prisoners who have done crimes so horrendous that the only the council can give_

_them proper punishment-among these people is Avi. However, the launch looks like it's going to_

_have a few set backs as the Earth Forces make a desperate attack to stop the weapon from leaving_

_Earth's orbit. It appears that there's only One mobile suit strong enough to hold off the Earth _

_forces, even in it's highly damaged condition..._

_Episode Seven_: _A Ghost Emerges..._


	7. Episode Seven

Previously:

Kyo and Miho had a surprise as they were saved from a firey death by a Gundam that had been piloted by

none other then Ryder! Who was promptly attacked by a mysterious and almost ghost like mech. Meanwhile,

Avi found herself in deep trouble when a Nexis soldier tracked her down in hopes of discovering the secret

behind the pesky kids that had managed to slip through their grasp previosly.

**Episode Seven**: _A Ghost Emerges_

''Look!''

Kyo pointed to the sky-there were two small specs flying at each other with clashes of light and loud thundering

claps. It was obvious that one of the two battling specs was Ryder in his newly found Gundam and other was

the strange ghost Gundam. Moments later Ryder's Gundam was thrown to the ground below, making the earth

tremble violently as it made contact. Both Kyo and Miho began to cough as they had inhaled the dirt and smoke

caused from the crash landing-Miho began to sneeze sounding like she might pass out after a while.

'Ryder isn't having much luck...In fact he's having his ass down right handed to him...'

Kyo promptly felt a sharp jab in the ribs as Miho growled at her friend for being so dark about this battle.

'You'd be just as bad if you were thrown into a battle for your life in a machine you still don't know how to pilot

properly. I wouldn't expect Ryder to know all the controls right off the bat, after all none of us has ever been in

a mech of this calibur. Just think of how advanced the systems in that Gundam must be and poor Ryder...'

Kyo just fell silent and stared blankly at Miho as she ranted out something that actually made sense in the current

situation, making it appear as if Miho knew exactly what she was talking about. But he had to agree with her now, he would be no better off if he were in Ryder's shoes and returned to watching the battle with hopes that the pilot of the other mech would have mercy on him.

The Gundam was speeding towards the downed Ryder, bringing its scythe around to make the finishing blow in this battle. With lightning fast reflexes, the Gundam at Ryder's control raised a sheild from it's hip and was forced back several yards as the other Gundam was met with the surprise. Using the moment, Ryder pushed foreward and felt that the other Gundam was giving way-his knuckles were white and he had long since lost all feeling in his fingers as he shoved the ghost Gundam back. With one final thrust, he managed to force the ghost far back for him to get back to his feet and come up with a counter attack, knowing that the other pilot would be still stunned at this. Always quick on his feet,Ryder pulled his shield up to cover any blind spots he may have-he was having trouble moving the mech as he had yet to memorize all the controls, but he had memorize quite a few. The thing he hated was knowing that the other pilot knew that he was at the disadvantage, breathing heavily and ignoring his body's screams, he decided that his best bet was to disarm the ghost Gundam-The scythe being the biggest threat by far as it would force the other pilot to use other tatics and he was pretty confident that they wouldn't be expecting that. Glancing at the screen, Ryder paused for a moment, the ghost Gundam hadn't moved from the position it had fallen into when it was shoved away.

'This' bad...'

he thought bitterly as he didn't trust that the other Gundam was defeated, the pilot was up to something and Ryder had to make his move now or never. Flipping several leavers and pressing a button or two, he felt his mech make a strange noise-he wasn't entirely sure what he was doing still, but hoped that it wouldn't end up screwing him over. Looking down at the statis of his Gundam, a small screen caught his eye and he saw that what he had done was active the missile launchers which sat idle on each shoulder-with enough emmo to destroy several city blocks. However, he didn't have time to marvel at the destructiveness of his mech, as he heard a slight beep from the main screen and saw that the ghost Gundam just vanished. Rubbing his eyes, he had to make sure that he wasn't passing out,but it was true-the gundam had just disappeared and didn't even read on any of the screens.

'Impossible...'

He breathed, now feeling even more on edge, knowing that the ghost was still there but now could strike him from any direction as virtually undetectable. Just then he was thrown foreward as was his Gundam as something slammed into the back of him. Stumbling foreward, he quickly caught his footing and spun around but nothing was there.

'There's no way Ryder can fight something he can't see!'

Kyo yelled no longer caring if he received a jab or a lecture from Miho-it was looking bleak for their friend and there was nothing all the support in the world could do to help. Miho ignored everything as she jumped over the brick wall that she and Kyo had taken shelter behind and began to dash towards the two fighting giants.

'MIHO! Get Back Here!'

Hiss Kyo as he found himself leaping out of safty and following after the half crazy Miho-He had to stop her before she did something stupid and got her self hurt or worse.

Ryder was not one for patience and this ghost pilot had worn thin what little of it he had-it didn't help that he felt extremely light headed as the pain from his gun wound was beginning to cloud his reaction time and senses. The controls were seeming to become heavy and sluggish as he moved about preparring for the next invisible attack, but he was not about to give in to the pain, not yet anyways. Closing his eyes and shutting out the pain, Ryder allowed to let his mind slip into silence-he could see it as if his eyes were open. Ryder could see the scythe coming for him from the back-that's were the ghost pilot was hiding. Spinning around suddenly, he grabbed the sword from his waste and ducking just slightly managed to evoid the scythe as he lunged foreward to plunge the sword into the body of the ghost Gundam. Sparks engolfed his screens as a high pitched noise filled the air-moments later Ryder could tell he had hit the ghost-turning he could see that the invisiblity cloak had fallen the moment he had hit the Gundam. Spewing sparks was not only the scythe but the arm of the ghost gundam-Ryder had made a very critical blow to the ghost and he felt good about it. Turning to fully face the injured gundam, he pressed two buttons and the missles from his shoulder launchers were sent howling towards his target. Explosions errupted,sending a large cloud of smoke into the air as they missiles hit their marks. Still on edge, Ryder held the sword in one hand and the sheild in the other, ready to strike again incase the Gundam had survived. As the moments passed and the smoke cleared, it became apparent that the ghost had survived the missile attack and had actually retreated along with it's arm, back to where ever it had come from. Safe-for now, Ryder shuddered as he knew that he could no longer fight off the enedible-he forced the gundam down to one knee and opened the cockpit. Making no effort to get out at first, then slowly undoing his restraints he stumbled towards the blissfully cool air-Ryder's eyes shut and he fell foreword off of the cockpit door.

Seeing Ryder falling, Miho let out a small squeel and dove to catch him, with no regard to her well being. skidding along the ground she managed to reach him in time-feeling all the air being forced out of her lunges as his weight falls on her.

'Is...Is he...Is he dead?'

Kyo asked, looking down at the two with concern in his eyes and receiving a dark glare from Miho in return.

Siro and Caldin were playing cards as they had just come back from their mission-it was one of the few free moments they ever got before being sent out again on another mission.

'I sense something bad's gonna happen.'

Caldin said suddenly,placing down two cards on a pile in the center of the table between him and Siro.

'Will you stoping being so melodramatic.'

Growled Siro as he frowned and cussed under his breath before tossing one card into the pile and signally for Caldin to start his turn.

'I'm not...It's just that things have been way too laid back...Straight.'

'Damn. That beats me.'

Siro tossed the rest of the cards on the table and leaned back in his seat with a drawn out sigh, bringing his hands behind his head as if thinking.

'laid back? Where do you get that? we've hardly been laid back-running around on fools missions. doing this or that of the other. We've hardly had two minutes to ourselves cause we've been the lap dogs for those...'

Siro was cut off by the sudden entrance of Jack-the room instantly fell silent and the tension between the three could easily be felt by anyone. Jack sneered at them as he walked towards them, he thought of them as dirt and they didn't care much of him either-making crude jokes about him behind his back all the time.

'Either of you seen Commander Verstas?'

'Have you tried using your eyes while looking for him.'

Snarled Siro as Caldin remained silent-they hadn't seen any one from their own fleet let alone any one from the Mandible's fleet. Jack stared at the two with true loathing in his eyes before turning on his heal and marching back out of the room-knowing it wasn't worth his time to stoop to their level. Once Jack had left, Caldin stuck his tounge out and pulled his lower eye lid down at the closed door-Siro just chuckled and shook his head in amusement. At that exact moment,however, Lieutenant Zash walked into the room and stopped dead in his tracks, a slight smirk played on the corner of his mouth as he enjoyed the shocked expressions on the lower officer's faces.

'I hope that you weren't making those face's at me.'

he said lightly but had a serious under tone and the two glanced at each other nervously.

'N-No...S-Sir!'

'We...We were just goofing around at officer Jack's expense...'

The two stummered as they stood to their feet to show their respect to their superiors.

'At ease boys-I'm not here to patronize you about what you do in your spare time. I'm here to tell you to suit up as you'll be escorting the Lunar One to the Orion base.'

Zash informed Siro and Caldin as he picked up a plastic fruit and inspected it as if he might try taking a bite out of it.

'It should be mr. Jack going but Captain Jindros decided you two would better fit the assignment instead-concidering if anything were to go wrong...'

he continued, turning the fruit over in his hands while watching the other two at the corner of his eyes, his smirk widening slightly as he noted that neither one had sat back down.

'But sir...If I may be permitted to say...'

'Permission granted.'

Zash replied airly, wanting more to hear what Caldin had to say then all the formalities.

'Thank you-Is not the Lunar One the project of the crew of the Mandible? Then wouldn't it make more sense for one of their officers to take charge of the transport?'

Zash stopped turning the fruit over and frowned slightly at hearing Caldin's question, he then let the plastic fruit drop back into the bowl in which he had found it.

'That is true, However...I don't trust the members of the Mandible and frankly neither does the Captain.'

silence filled the room as Siro and Caldin let what their superior said to them sink it, and it began to make some sense.

'Now...I believe you both have a mission to attend to.'

'Yes Sir!'

The two saluted Zash before grabbing their jackets and leaving the room quickly, they would have to change into their flight suits for this mission. Waiting a few minutes, Zash then too left the room and made his way down the cold corridor to the captain's lounge to report that the escorts would be ready momentarily.

'Excellent Lieutenant-I would have perferred you or Lieutentant Zetsume to over see the transport but both of you seem indisposed the moment.'

Jindros sighed as he stood infront of a window that over looked the launch site, many people were racing around to ensure that the launch goes off without any inciddents.

'Indeed, but I have full confidence in Siro and Caldin's abilities.'

replied Zash, watching as Jindros moved away from the window and over to a display case holding various medals and trophies.

'Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt them for a moment. Not only are they excellent soldiers, but they command powerful Gundams. However, You and miss Zetsume are more experienced and would have been the ideal occompiants...'

The two men fell silent at this. moments later the silence is broken by the sound of someone paging Zash, who bowed before stepping out of the captian's room and back into the hall.

'Lieutenant Zash-Private Astera of the Mandible fleet here. I require your assisstance.'

'Is something the matter?'

Zash was half paying attention to where he walked as he spoke into his com-link, he really didn't have the time to go and see Astera every time she paged him. Waiting for her to respond, Zash found himself near the hangers and could hear several men yelling to each other-no doubtedly helping with reattaching the arm to Taka's gundam.

'What have you gotten yourself into this time?'

he thought amusedly, intending on going in to check up on the progress of the repairs-having not seen Taka since he heard she returned with some sufficent injuries.

'Lieutenant...please meet me at my quarters, It's worth your time-I promise.'

surpressing the urge to groan, Zash really didn't like putting himself in situations where he could be liable for some scandalized situation-especially when it came to the secretive members of the mandible. Turning away from the hangers, he knew he had a few minutes to spare and decided that it really might be worth his time-Astera seemed to be geniunly sincere about meeting him.

'Very well.'

he replied before terminating the conversation and making his way towards the cement stairs that led down to the visiting officer's quarters.

With a sigh, Taka wipped the hair from her eyes, holding a heavy wrench in hand. She was taking a small break, but was admiring how far even if it was minimal she had come since she started with repairing her Gundam. At least she knew that her mech wouldn't fall apart if she had to go into battle with it in this condition-she had fixed up the small leaks and lose ends.

'Not bad...'

she thought before collapsing to her knees-she didn't realize how exhausted she was until now. from the moment she arrived on Earth she had been constantly doing something and that last battle she had had taken a lot out of her, damning the pilot of that new mobile suit she swore that the next time she ran into it that she would destroy it and it's pilot.

'ALL HANDS TO THEIR POSTS-ALL HANDS TO THEIR POSTS! AIRIAL ENEMY ASSAULT AT HAND!'

came the womanized robotic voice as warning lights flashed red, the message repeated several times before turning off. Glancing over the cat ramp, Taka saw many soldiers jumping into their suits;obviously the enemy was attacking them knowing that the Lunar One was about to launch. Shoving the wrench aside,Taka leapt back to her feet and dove into the cockpit of her Gundam, she was the only one around who would be able to hold off the Earth force's long enough for the launch to go through.

'This' Taka Zetsume...Prepare for Launch!'

Next Episode:

The Earth Forces have made their move to try and stop the Lunar One from leaving Earth to its designated destination where it would be of most danger. The heavily damaged Black Death and exhausted Taka fight to keep the surprise attack from hindering the launch-however there is more then one surprise waiting for her in the battle field. Avi finds herself in a strange place all alone with the only sound being shouts and screams. Trying her best to get off of the ship before it's too late, Avi finds that it's easier said then done.

Episode 8: Assault on LoLo base...


	8. Episode Eight

Previously:   
Ryder managed to beat the ghost gundam by severing it's arm and making it's scythe useless. Managing to use his remaining strength to lower the gundam before falling unconcious and falling from the machine. Kyo and Miho were just glad to see him alive as they were left in charge of the mech. The Nexis' newest weapon is about to launch when suddenly the Earth Force's launch their own attack in an attempt to keep the potentially deadly weapon from leaving the atmosphere-now it's up to the heavily injured Black Death and Taka to keep the Earth from achieving their goal.

Episode Eight: Assault on LoLo base.

Taka plowed through several of the Earth forces mobile suits, however, she had limited mobility as her Gundam was still unfit for combat. Ackwardly slicing through two suits she had to use her damaged scythe in the only arm her Gundam had currently. Frowning, she had to move faster to make up for what her machine lacked-making balancing a tricky thing at that as well. Along side fellow mechs, Taka was beating back the invading forces-managing to get between them and their destination at the lauch pad. Being the strongest mech in the battle, Taka had to take many burrages of bullets from the opposite forces for her side-each time she was hit it felt like she was being bombarded with missles instead. She had just sliced through a large artillery unit when she heard the crackling voices of her superiors cutting into her transmission.  
'Lieutenant, what do you think your doing out there? In your condition you and your unit are not preparred for intense combat at the moment. Return to the hanger and let the others do their job, they will take care of this nuissence.'  
Plainly ignoring her orders, Taka sped towards another enemy, she knew that she would get into alot of trouble for disobaying direct orders, yet she found that she didn't care.  
'Lady Zetsume...Our men will take care of this, return at once!'  
came the second warning, with a growl Taka flipped a switch and her Gundam took to the air. Many of the Earth's soldiers hadn't expected this, which made her grin to herself as she manuvered her Gundam to hit another mech.  
'Taka...What are you thinking? You're going to get yourself killed out there.'  
This time the voice belonged to none other then Lieutenant Zash.  
' Can you hear us, Taka...Return before something happens to you...'  
'Stop worring about me-I can handle this...'  
She finally replied before switching the intercom off feeling slightly guilty, she knew she had just over stepped her bounds-at the same time she also knew that though she was damaged she would be fine. The Black Death Landed squarely on a tank which exploded upon impact, the fire rocked the Gundam, charring it's legs as well. Another tank was taking aim on her, which she spun and dug her scythe into before it hit her with it's missles. Leaping back into the air, Taka smirked slightly, Zash had probably been confused when she cut off transmission-she hated to do it but she had no other choice-if she had allowed them to continue she would have been distracted and something would have happened.  
All too soon the Earth force's numbers had drastically thinned and began retreating as continuing would be suicidal for anyone. Taka was not one to rejoice yet, as her commerades did she had a feeling something was coming-that the Earth Forces had one last trick up their sleeves.  
'This' far from over...'  
she thought darkly. That's when a bleep on her rador screen made her look away from her control panal. High above them appeared a mech they had never seen before, it looked like a mythical dragon soaring from beyond the clouds-though on second glance it became appearant that this machine was some new sort of jet. No one knew what to do with this machine-Taka growled and punched several buttons. The Dragon jet shot some sort of missle which was aimed straight for the lunar one. The Black Death sped through the air, moving faster then it had wanted to-the gears whined loudly as sparks began to fly from it was stilll damaged.  
'I'm not going to let them win...'  
Taka growled as she ignored the noises and held her breath, it was going to be close-the missile was moving almost as fast as she was. With one last blast, The Black Death managed to move into the path of the missile which collided into the Gundam and exploded upon impact. The air was filled with a thick smoke as the Black Death disappeared from sight along with the dragon jet.  
The shock wave of the impact shook the lunar one violently, sending most of it's crew stumbling off balance. Siro and Caldin were thrown off of their feet, nearly falling off of the cat walk where their Gundams were docked.  
'What was that?'  
Siro asked angerly holding his head as he climbed back to his feet. Caldin also got to his feet and looked around for answers.  
'I'm not sure, but I don't believe that was us lauching.'  
Several of the mechanists were running around making sure everything was still alright, one passed the two soldiers and checked on them before dashing off to tend to one of the smaller mechs. Caldin opened the cockpit of the PowerHouse and jumped into his seat, opening a communication line with the main base.  
'This' Caldin of the Jindros team-are we under some sort of attack? What's going on out there?'  
he glanced at Siro while he waited for a reply.  
'If we were under attack why wouldn't they inform us...'  
muttered Siro as he turned away and looked over the cat walk, watching as people still ran about.  
'Everything's under control-there is no cause for alarm'  
'Can you tell us what happened? what shook our shuttle?'  
there was a pause but murmering could be heard coming from the mysterious person talking to Caldin.  
'The Earth Forces attacked the base in hopes to stop the Lunar One from launching-however our men were able to stop them. What you felt was the after shock of an explosion several hundred feet above you-The Earth scum tried to directly distroy the shuttle, but Lady Zetsume intercepted the missile...'  
By this time Siro lept into the cock pit with Caldin and looked down at the panals,  
'Is she alright? She was using one of the other mech's right?'  
another pause of silence, causing both Caldin and Siro to look at each other wondering the same thing-what had become of Taka?  
'I'm sorry, your about to launch-I must terminate this transmission.'  
'No Wait...Answer my Question!'  
but it was no use, the tranmission ended-leaving the two pilots to listen to the soft sound of static hissing at them.  
'Siro...you don't think...'  
Siro quickly shook his head 'no' before Caldin could finish his sentence.  
'If there's one thing I know about Lady Zetsume, it's that she won't die without a fight. She's probably being picked up as we speak.'  
'I hope your right.'  
The two hop out of the Gundam and make their way to the other end of the shuttle where the real Lunar One was located, they wanted to see the weapon that they were sappoused to be protecting. As they left the hanger, they felt a slight shake as the shuttle took off, neither of them looked too concerned.  
'After this I'm looking foreward to some time off to go home and relax.'  
'We deffinatly will have the time after we land.'  
Caldin agreed as he slapped his friend on the back, getting a playful punch from Siro in return.

After being jostled around like a rag doll, Avi had been shaken from her deep coma like sleep. At first she was disoriented and confused as to why she couldn't see a thing, but quickly realized that she had been blindfolded. Remembering what had happened, she pulled the dark cloth off of her face and allowed her eyes to adjust to the dim light in the room she found herself in. Looking around, she came to the conclusion that she was in some sort of holding cell and that she wasn't alone, there were some other down traudden people sitting on the floor all lost in their own thoughts.   
'Well, it seems that the last of us has finally woken from her beauty sleep.'  
A man with a large brown beard boomed loudly, he looked no older then 40 yet his voice sounded much of a twenty something year olds. Avi eyed this man up suspeciously, she didn't trust any of these strangers and felt unnerved that she had been asleep around such strangers.  
'Where are we? And who are you people?'  
She growled, pulling herself to her feet not wanting to be sitting on the ground around these people. Upon her question a few others made dark growls or unintelligable mutters-the man only grinned wider, revealing his perfect white teeth.  
'You mean you don't know? We're the lucky few that have been selected to be shipped to some space port by our dear friends...of the Nexis...'  
he replied with some bitterness entering his voice at the mension of Nexis.  
'Nexis? You mean, we're on a Nexis ship headed to space? But why?'  
The bearded man found Avi's sudden out burst rather amusing, and chuckled slightly before answering her question.  
'From what I gather, we've been so bad that they don't have a punishment cruel enough for us on Earth-they're probably going to throw us all out...'  
He stopped when he saw some of the dirty looks he was getting from the other prisoners. Walking over to the door, Avi began to kick it repeatedly,this only caused the bearded man to pull her away from the door. Something Avi didn't appreciate as she pulled away from him and glared daggers into his eyes.  
'What the hell?'  
'Calm yourself...Kicking the door that won't open is no way to solve our problems.It will only bring unwanted attention upon the rest of us.'  
the man paused as he looked around the small room, a small glint in his eyes appeared as he returned his attention to Avi.  
'However, this does give me an idea...'  
A few hours later the ship wsa nearing it's destination when there was a sudden disturbance in the holding cells. Four men stood around the door to the room, reading themselves to enter and bring an end to the ruckus.  
'How could you give up hope so quickly! What about the rest of us!'  
Yelled Avi at the bearded man who turned his back to her, no longer interested in what she had to say.  
'I'm not going to let you fill these poor saps with false hope that we're going to get out of this alright! We should just accept our fate! At first I thought just like you do, but think reasonably...'  
he retarted, marching to the opposite side of the room, the others watched with wide eyes.  
'I refuse to lie down and die!'  
Avi fumed, crossing her arms and starring at the man with such anger that it could almost bare a hole through his skull. There was a pause, which the Guards took as a good time to enter the room.Since the doorway was so small they had to enter one at a time, making their repressive presence less impressive.  
'What's going on in h...'  
Before the man could finish he was grabbed from behind the door-causing the other guards to flood in frantically. This was a horrible mistake, as the four guards were no match for the prisoners as they were quickly over taken by them. Though the guards hadn't called for back up, the prisoners knew it would only be a matter of time before someone came looking for them. Leaving the guards bound and locked in the cell, Avi and the bearded man stood in the small hallway as the others quickly made their escape. the two knew that this was were they would part ways, though they had barely known each other, in some small way they had become friends.  
'Why don't you come with us? We could certainly use someone like you.'  
the man offered, as tempting as it sounded, Avi knew she couldn't go-she had her own agenda to fill.   
'Thanks, but I have unfinished business here...'  
'Alright...stay safe then...'  
The man replied before dashing after the others,Avi nodded once more just as she ran in the opposite direction.  
Using her petite size to avoid being detected as more and more soldiers made their way to the now empty holding cells...  
''DOCKING IN 10...9...8...''  
came the loud mechanical voice announcing the the crew that they had finally reached their distination. Avi walked down a corridor which seemed to be empty of all Nexis soldiers, a small cool breeze rushed past her.  
'The way out must be close...'  
she thought as she reached the end of the hall-she had some how made her way to the hangers.withholding a satisfactory grin, she crept foreward to see people were unloading a varity of boxes and vehecles. It was the perfect chance to escape, but she knew there was no way she could in what she wore-she would be spotted almost instantly. While trying to figure out how she was going to get off, Avi spotted a flight suit that someone had carelessly discarded over the railing of one of the catwalks. Stealthfully she nabbed the suit and slipped it on over her street clothes,unfortunatly she had to take off her sweater and balled it up. Feeling more confident, she walked down the stairs to the main floor still not sure how'd she get out safely. That's when she saw a motorcycle sitting idle away from the activity of the rest of the bay-unfortunatly it was quite big and heavy looking, making it look almost impossible for Avi to drive.  
'HEY YOU!'  
Avi stopped cold in her tracks when she heard someone yelling at her. biting her bottom lip she turned and tried to act as calm as possible. Two boys were briskly walking towards her, both wore different suits from the other soldiers-avi didn't know why and didn't care she just hoped that they wouldn't reconize her as a civilian.  
'yea, what is it?'  
she replied ignoring the dark look each boy was giving her.  
'can you tell us when we can unload our suits?'  
Siro gestured behind him-trying to keep her composure, Avi looked up to see two massive Gundams about 100 yards from where she and the boys stood.  
'You'll have to ask the head mechanic...I'm busy.'  
She said simply turning to return to her excape plan but stopped when she heard one of the boys mutter something rude about her under his breath. Unable to control herself, Avi balled her fists and spun back around to face the boys-she then punched the closest of the two as she didn't know which one had made the comment.. Siro wheeled back holding his noise and yelling in both shock and pain.  
'The hell's your problem!'  
Caldin yelled angerly. Avi wasted no time in high-tailing it out of there. She lept onto the bike but frowned as she couldn't find the ignition key.  
'Dammit!'  
She growled slamming her fists down onto a control panal-suddenly the bike sprang to life, but instead of starting like a normal bike, it lifted itself six feet off of the ground-causing avi to yelp in surprise.  
'The hell is this...'  
'DON'T LET HER EXCAPE!'  
Avi looked over to see that the two boys were racing towards her with a couple of gun totting soldiers.She didn't have time to screw around with the strange bike, she had to get out of there or be captured again and most likely killed. She pressed down on the excelleration petal and was nearly thrown off of the bike as it sped off, nearly hitting the men after her-Avi had to put all her weight in each turn to avoid crashing into people or other obsticals. As soon as she sped out of the ship, she felt even more uneasy as she had no idea where she was or where to go. Speeding over the ground, Avi knew that she now had several new problems to worry about-she was stuck on a colony no doubt controlled by Nexis and had no way of getting back to Earth. she growled as she knew how bad things were looking for her, with the whole colony soon to be on the look out for her.  
'I should have just stayed in bed today...'  
she muttered, slowing the bike and going down an alley to hide long enough to think things over. the landing was rough and hurt, but Avi didn't care-she just needed a good place to hide and figure out how she was going to get home...

Next Episode:  
Kyo and Miho try to figure out what they're going to do with their unconcious friend and his gundam. On top of that, they soon realize that they need food and water before it gets too dark and dangerous. Meanwhile the pilot of the dragon jet is stranded on the side of a mountain in Nexis territory with no means of communication with her ship. Unfortunatly the pilot soon finds that they're not alone, and must defend themselves against the sudden new threat.  
Episode Nine: In The Rubble...


	9. Episode Nine

Episode Nine: In the rubble

As the sun the rose that morning it was an eerie red colour,accompanied by a thicklayer of smoke that looked like a halo around the sun. Standing on the shoulder of her gundam,Taka watched the sun rise above the tree line. She was currently patiently waiting for the rescue crew that she knew was on its way to pick her up. Taka wasn't about to abandon her mech while she knew the Earth Forces were still in the area, so she waited, even if it would take them a day to find her. Due to her Gundam's condition she couldn't radio to the base her coordinates and because of it's cloaking, no rador could pick up its signal. Normally a very handy feature, but in situations like this, it wasn't that great and could potentially be fatal if she was in serious danger. While she waited, Taka checked the status of her machine and how badly it had been damaged when she had taken the full force of the cannon blast. Mericalulasly it was still in one piece, but would take at least a week to repear and even then it would still be a while until she got it working to full compacity.Turning her gaze away from the sun, Taka took the momentary peace to survay the side of the mountain enwhich she had crash landed on. It was hard to make anything out with all the smoke in the air, it wouldn't clear until later unless a strong wind picked up.

''It's so silent''

she thought, finding the calm almost uncomfertable as all she had known for the past several years was just a contant noise. She moved fromm the shoulder down to the open cockpit and took a much needed rest in her seat. She had just closed her eyes to take a quick nap when she heard a twig snap not too far from where she was. Instantly snapping to attention Taka launched out of her seat and slide down one side of the meh, using it as some what of a shield. At first she thought that it was probably just a wild animal, but this theory was dashed as she heard some one speaking as if talking to someone. Not reconizing the voice, Taka pulled her gun from her swaist and waited for the intruder to show themselves. Who ever was coming was only feet from stumbling upon the crash site and the alert Nexis soldier. Tensly Taka watched where she had calculated the person to appear-manuvering so that she would have a clear shot of them if they were hostile. She just hoped that it wsn't the advance platoon for Earth's next strike, though it wouldn't be foolish of them to try anything so soon as the entire base was on high alert. Shifting agitedly, Taka watched as a woman pushed her way through the bushes-she was in an Earth Force's uniform. She came to a skidding hault asshe noticed the downed Gundam and instantly knew that the pilot couldn't be too far away. In a flash Taka had lept from her hiding spot,gun pointed at the woman who in a move just as fast had her gun pointed at Taka.

''Drop the weapon or I'll shoot!''

Growled Taka, the Earth woman remained silent-her icy blue eyes piercing into Taka's own dark one's.

'Is this what it's come down to?'

The woman sneered. No sign of fear in her voice or eyes.

''If I'm going to die on this day...then I'm taking you with me.'

she continued, her hateful expression never changing.

'I see you haven't changed a bit...Rain Sakura.''

Taka replied just as darkly-a small smirk playing on the corners of her lips. A gust of sand and smoke swirled around the two-who looked as if they were frozen in an eternal showdown. Not too far off the low rumble of all teran vehecles began to grow closer.

'They'll be here in under ten minutes.'

Taka breathed slowly, as Rain continued to glare while she searched her face for any indication of what Taka had ment.

'heh. Perfect. That's more then enough time for me to dispose of you and damage Nexis enough to give Earth the advantae it needs to finish this foolish war. ''

Rain replied, tightening her grip on the gun. Taka, however, growled under her breath and turned all her attention to the Earth woman.

'True, you could try to kill me and naturally I would do the same. But, where would that leave everyone else involved? Earth would, essentially be more at the disadvantage from losing one of their best fighters. Where as Nexis would only fuel more hatred into the war, resulting in even more bloodshed... They dcould easily replace me. In the end it would be senseless for either one of us to die here and now...''

Rain hated to admit it, but what Taka said did make sense.

'If I kill you know, it will take Nexis precious time to train another pilot to take your place.'

'Ah, that wouldn't hinder us for long, we have many talented pilots that would make excellent gundam pilots given the oppertunity...such as my death.''

Taka replied,smirking as she saw Rain mull it over. Unfortunatly the longer she stalled the closer the rescue team camd and the window of oppertunity for Rain to excape was increasingly becoming smaller. Taka looked at the barrel of her gun before lowering her arm and lifting her hard expression, Rain looked confused and her arm wavered.

'Do what you want. If you think its best then go ahead and shoot me.'

Rain steadied her hand, preparring to take this chance-but after an intense moment, she too dropped her arm. She couldn't shoot someone who had given her permission to kill them-especiallly if that person was once a friend.

'i Know I'm going to regret not taking the oppertunity to kill you-But I agree that it would be pointles right now.''

Taka didn't reply but was just starring at her half destroyed Gundam.

'Good...then you won't mind me...Telling you to...get the Hell out of here!''

Taka spun around and had her gun pointed at Rain's heart-taken by surprise Rain lept back as if expecting worse. She had been expecting Taka to put her under arrest or or prisoner then hand her over to her superiors.But to be told to go, free...

'Your going to just let me go? But I know where the base is..'

'I know.'

replied Taka, the expression in her eyes was not that of hatred but that of determination. She was determined to make sure Rain got away safely-even though she knew that Rain would return with the same unit and launch another attack against the Nexis nbse. The rumble of the vehecles ws almost deffining know, and there were only a few precious minutes left before they would be swarming all over the site. Rain sdtraightened up and nodded, she was secretly grateful that this encounter hadn't resulted in death. She began to head back the way she had come, but stopped to look back at Taka who still hadn't moved.

'The next time we meet...'

'I'll kill you...'

Taka finished Rain's sentence. Smirking, Rain gave a small nod before vanishing into the dense underbrush of the forest. She would head down the mountain side, passing the spot her own jet had crashed to pick up a few supplies. She knew there was a run down city nearby but wasn't sure how strong Nexis' hold over it was and didn't want to take any more chances. Also, once within the city walls she'd be able to contact her ship-they'd send someone to pick her up and she'd be able to tell them all that she had seen. Rain lept over logs and fallen branches, moving swiftly through the underbrush-the faster she got away from the mountain the better she would feel more relaxed. Coming to a skidding hault as she reached the sight of her destroyed jet-its dragonic frame jutting out of the trees like some remains of a mythical beast. Several smallfires burnt the area and the remains of the jet. It was lucky that Rain had even survived the crash-when her one and only shot at stopping lunar one was deflected-she thought she'd be able tofly back to her ship. But she had been caught in the blast from Taka's Gundam-resulting in her jet being engulfed by flames. As Rain rummaged through the rubble she couldn't help but look back up to the top of the mountain. She wondered if Taka was still there or on her way back to the base-she still couldn't fully understand why or what had compelled her to go up there in the first place. With a heavy shrug Rain finished her collecting and stuffed any vital information that had't beend detroyed into her coat pocket and gave the area one last glance for anything she may have missed. Seeing that she hadn't, Rain pulled out her radio and switched it on-all that could be heard was loud static and hissing. Interference from the mountains and more likely the Nexia base at the peak of the mountain. She clipped the radio to her belt and as if she had't stopped, resumed her decent down the mountain. Judging from the sun's position in the sky, Rain estimated that she would get into the small twon by early evening if she was lucky. Sliding down a gental slope, Rain looked over her shoulder for the last time before it was blocked from her view.

'Don't do anything stupid Taka...'


End file.
